


just another part of everything

by caela



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Dreamscapes, Emotional Manipulation, F/F, Growing Up, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Minor Character Death, Mutual Pining, On Hiatus, Post-Season/Series 01, Redemption, Soulmates, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-22 16:50:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17063438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caela/pseuds/caela
Summary: "You could have—"stayed; kept your promise; had me,“been smarter about this.”*(or: hate and love are four feet apart. it only takes two feet on each side to close the distance.)





	1. ADORA I

* * *

 

**PART I - THE PRICE OF PATIENCE**

 

**Chapter I**

**_End of the Beginning_ **

**Three Months After the Horde Attacked Bright Moon**

The training grounds are in full bloom; sun beating down on them, as they circle each other.

 

“Keep an eye on your stance, widen it a bit— not  _that_  much; and— keep your arms _up_ ,  _always_ , or I could just...” Adora tapers off, stepping into him as she lifts her fingers, pressing lightly into the lids of Bow’s eyes, and then down into his neck. Bow gulps. Stepping back again, she clears her throat. “A  _Horde soldier_  would be able to blind you, or do some serious damage to your windpipe, with your arms positioned the way they are right now."

 

“ _Blind_  me?” Bow blinks at her. “How could you—?“

 

“Two thumbs into the inner-most corners of the eyes, crush down into the occipital cavity,” she recites, automatically. Bow _winces_. “All cadets are taught it,” she says, a tad defensively, at the look on Bow’s face. She _knows_ that look. “Perennial favourite of the Horde soldier. We have to practice it on training dummies.”

 

Bow shakes his head, gaze open and appalled, before reaching out to grasp her arm, trying to offer comfort. He always approaches talk of the Horde with unguarded _sympathy_ , nowadays, instead of his initial disgust. “ _Stars_ , Adora, that’s—”

 

“Horrific? I know. Luckily,” she pulls away, stretching her aching arms above her head, “I never _did_ see it done on anything more than a hologram or a mannequin.” He still looks a little sick, so she tries to smile, reassuringly, “I was top of my class, Bow. I know all the dirty tricks and manoeuvres a Horde soldier is bound to pull. And I know how to counter them. Now, you wanna go through the motions of that new move again?”

 

So, they do. They go through them again, and _again_ , like cogs clicking together and apart, back and forth – _jab, parry, thrust, roll_ \- until Bow is panting, just a little, and his brow is shining with little beads of perspiration.

 

“Hand-to-hand is a lot harder than it looks,” he says, almost conversationally, but Adora takes the hint, relaxing her stance. 

 

“Enough for today, then,” she smiles, and Bow _whoops_ and throws a sweaty arm around her shoulders. “ _Ew_ , gross, _Bow_!” she cries, affronted for a moment, before he throws her a grin and she gives in, throwing back her head and laughing.

 

“You’re doing well, you know - _really_ well. I knew you were strong, already, since you’re an archer, but you’re a fast learner, too,” she tells him, encouragingly, as they make their way through the freshly trimmed hedges that edge the training grounds. Ahead of them, the gardens of Bright Moon are splayed out – flowers have wound their way around every surface, into the cracks of the cobblestones and winding up the castle walls as they approach.

 

“This stuff is exhausting, though,” he admits, and she pats his arm, in an attempt to be reassuring.

 

“At first,” Adora remembered all too well her days spent within the chambers of the Fright Zone, repeating the steps of combat like a dance, muscles screaming in protest as _again, one more time, Adora_. “It becomes muscle memory in no time, I promise you. And we _have_ time. Remember, you still owe me that archery lesson.” He grins, at that.

 

The walls of Bright Moon rise up, crystalline and white, as they skirt them, up the steps and in through the main entrance of the castle, still laughing about something Bow had said along the way.

 

A low cough from the direction of the throne is the only thing to break the comfortable, post-training spell. Adora spins on her heel, dropping into a curtsy, not raising her head to look to see who it is before she starts rambling out the expected pleasantries: “Queen Angella, _your majesty_ , my apologies, I—” She looks up then, and pauses.

 

A lone guard blinks at her. The throne is empty. “Oh.”

 

“My apologies, Princess _She-Ra_ , I have a slight cold,” the guard says, stiffly.

 

“Oh, no! _No_ , I shouldn’t have—I, _uh_ , hope you get well soon.” _Stars_ , she is terrible at this. She straightens, heat crawling up her neck, as Bow tries – and fails, _miserably_ – to hold in his laughter next to her. “Good day, then,” she says, plastering on a smile that probably looks like she has a toothache. The guard only blinks at her.

 

Turning, she grips Bow’s arms, dragging him away as she makes her brave escape – down the corridor and up the spiralling staircase to their rooms. Bow cackles as he races ahead and up. “ _Space_ ,” she mumbles, face hot in her hands.

 

“Queen Angella’s got you curtsying at the guards, now, eh, _your majesty_?” he sniggers. She groans into her fingers.

 

“It’s a habit,” she sighs, “I always expect her to be lurking around the next corner, all _regal_ and _graceful_ and _silently judging_ my _terrible_ Eternian etiquette. You should have seen her face when I accidentally _saluted_ her last week. I’m starting to think I need to make flash cards on this stuff.”

 

“Didn’t you guys hug that one time?” he asks from the spiral of bannister above her. She rolls her eyes.

 

“ _Once_ ,” she emphasises, “and never again. Besides, it was a _group_ hug? I was in _She-Ra_ form? She’d just found out she wasn’t going to _die_ at the hands of the _Horde?_ Doesn’t count.”

 

Bow laughs and shakes his head. “Honestly? I’m pretty sure she’s just as uncomfortable around you as you are with her.” At her scoffing noise, he explains, “No, really, _think_ about it. You’re, like, an ex-Horde Force Captain turned mythical eight-foot princess. What are you meant to say to that?”

 

“I don’t know, _you’ve_ never had a problem with it, and you’re not a ten-foot-tall immortal fairy queen. I doubt she can have  _too_ much trouble compartmentalising,” she says, and Bow shrugs, clearly deciding to let the matter drop, “where is her _royal highness_ , anyway?”

 

“I think she’s speaking to Glimmer. I saw them leave together at lunch,” he shrugs. “Said it was important. Probably just mum-stuff.”

 

Adora nods, absently. “Probably. Look, Bow, I’m going to try and get some sleep. Been having a bit of trouble with it, lately. You good to go find Glimmer by yourself?”

 

Bow nods, “’course. You _should_ try and get some rest, Adora,” he says, meaningfully. “I know it’s _difficult_ , right about now, but still.” She nods again, turns away, and pretends that she doesn’t feel his frowning eyes on her as she walks into her rooms. He calls after her, just as she rounds her door. “Oh, and don’t forget—“ but the lock clicks a second too late, and she doesn’t have the energy to open the door and find out what exactly it is that she has to remember.

 

Trembling with exhaustion, she clambers into her bed and falls asleep in an instant.

 

*

 

It has been a long time since the Horde have launched an attack on Bright Moon. Or, a long time for the _Horde_ to not attack an enemy state. Perhaps, they learnt their lesson from the last time. It’s unlikely; essentially impossible, but— _perhaps_. The war is on hold, it seems. Ceasefire; stalemate; standstill.

 

_“They’re planning something,” she’d told the queen, a month ago, two months after the attack. She still carries the scars of that day, dug into her back. “Something big; and I mean bigger than before.”_

_“Of course they are,” Queen Angella had exhaled, tiredly, “and what do you suggest we do about it?”_

_“We could lead an attack—” She stopped at the queen’s look. Angella had pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed, like that was exactly what she had hoped Adora would not say, and yet, exactly what she expected her to._

_“You have gained my respect - as the elected She-Ra of this generation, in our time of need; as a suitable companion for my daughter; as a powerful and compassionate figure to aid the rebellion."_

 

_Adora had blushed, a little, at that. “I’m flattered, your—"_

 

_“But,” she cut off her thanks, "you know little of politics, or patience. We must focus on consolidation - on building relations with the allied princesses; on rallying our troops and training them to the best of our ability. We cannot afford to lose ground through reckless, unprovoked attacks.”_

_Adora had bowed low, and exited with as much decorum as she could muster, seething._

 

Now, she only wants this to end. She wants it done; to see the Horde defeated, for it to be over, _finished_. She trains more often, fights with everything, studies as hard as she can, picking up every scrap of information she could find about She-Ra; from legends and rumours and the writings of the old queens and princesses that had come before them. But still, _still_ , she can’t—

_*_

_“—sleep, it’s too cold,” Catra says, as she crawls in between Adora’s limp arms. “Move over, sleepyhead,” she hisses in her ear, and Adora obliges floppily, as she slips into the space beside her, and pulls the blanket over the pair of them._

_They’re eight standard years old, and sharing a bed is a sort of necessity, at this point, if Catra doesn’t want to suffer the beatings of Octavia or one of the other Enforcers._

_Adora pets the space between Catra’s ears and hums, trying to shake off the grogginess of sleep. “Did you have a nightmare?” she asks, softly, and Catra stiffens next to her._

_“No. Go to sleep,” she snaps, clearly wide awake and voice like acid and ice. Adora doesn’t flinch. She only waits, breathing steadily, until Catra twists around to face her. “Yes,” she whispers, soft and hollow. She never apologises for waking her, or snapping, but she smooths small circles into Adora’s arms as she whispers about the latest dream, and Adora listens, half-awake and doing her best to be comforting._

_It happens nearly every night, now. The pattern of it. Soon, Catra will wait up, until the other recruits are asleep, to slip into Adora’s bed. She sleeps better that way, it seems. But she still sometimes wakes, panting and sobbing quietly, and Adora is always tasked with calming her before she wakes up any of the other children, in case they complain._

_She whispers the softest, most comforting things she can think of – it’s OK, I’m here, it wasn’t real – as quickly as she can without sounding panicked, and Catra usually collapses into her and goes back to sleep. If she can’t do that, if the dream was too bad, sometimes she tells Adora about it, in hushed tones._

_“I dreamt of my mother—”_

_“I dreamt you died—”_

_“I dreamt Shadow Weaver—”_

_“I dreamt you left me here, and you never, ever came back.”_

_And Adora always holds her afterwards - even though it is against the Horde code to coddle a child - and makes a million promises she would never have been able to keep, even if she had stayed, in the end:_

_“She’ll come back for you, one day, when you’re a Force Captain with honours and medals. She’ll be so proud."_

_“I’ll always protect you from Shadow Weaver.”_

_“That one’s just silly. I'll never leave you, never ever—”_

_*_

 

She wakes up.

 

The world is too softly lit for it to be the Fright Zone. The sheets are too silky beneath her skin; the familiar feeling of bone-deep exhaustion creeps up on her, and it can only be this side of Etheria, only Bright Moon. She knew that, already, of course, the second she woke up.

 

She never dreamed in the Fright Zone.

 

It takes her several seconds to realise why exactly she was woken, in the first place. The persistent ringing in her ears is actually the stubborn bell of the door, and she nearly falls out of her bed scrambling to answer it.

 

“Coming!” she calls, hurriedly. Whoever is ringing obviously can’t hear her, as the bell continues to chime, again and again, back and forth, back and— “I said, _I’m coming!”_ she half-roars at the door as she pulls on a pair of loose trousers and scrambles to unlock her rooms before ripping it open. “Now, _can I help you—?”_

 

Queen Angella stares back at her, features impassive. “Oh,” is all she says.  _Stars, she’s so eloquent._

 

“Oh,” Adora echoes back, and it’s somehow less graceful than Queen Angella’s _oh_. It’s only then that she remembers herself. “ _Oh_ ,” She drops into a curtsy. “My apologies, your majesty, I—”

 

“I was, _”_ the queen cuts her off with a wave of the hand, “under the impression that you would be having dinner with my daughter, myself and Bow tonight."

 

“Oh,” _what day is it today?_ “ _Oh no_.”

 

“ _No?_ I was mistaken, then?” She absolutely was _not_ mistaken, and Adora knows that, and – judging by the _twitch_ of her regal brow – the queen _knows_ Adora knows that.

 

“No! No as in _oh no, Queen Angella, I’m really sorry, I forgot it was today_ , not… no.” She can feel the heat pounding in her cheeks, now, and she must look crazy – a blushing mess with bedhead and oversized pyjamas.

 

The queen just regards her, steadily. “I see.”

 

“I’ll be down for dinner if you only give me a moment, I’m really sorry, I just—”

 

The queen takes a single step inside the rooms. Then another. Then a few more. She looks around. She finds a seat. She sits. Adora stares.

 

“Dinner was an hour ago, Adora.”

 

“Oh, _space_. _I mean_ — Your majesty, I am _so_ sorry. I will make it up to you—I just—”

 

“There’s no need, Adora. You’re tired, clearly. And I’m an immortal being; I have forever. There will be another time.” Her voice is soft, almost understanding, and Adora should expect what comes next, but: “I only called to enquire – how is your training coming along?”

 

Adora starts; averts her gaze. “It’s—"  _going fantastically; swimmingly; incredibly?_ She opts for honesty, “the most challenging thing I’ve ever been tasked with. The First Ones citadel I’d visited before, it was destroyed by the Horde, I think, right before the ceasefire. So, now, I don’t know how to  _find_ Light Hope, or contact the First Ones. I don’t know how to train. I only know about _one_ She-Ra that came before me, Mara, and apparently she was the one who got us stuck in Despandos to begin with, so that’s— _great_.” It comes out in a flood. Probably half of it was garbled, but Queen Angella clearly speaks teenager, and her gaze doesn’t falter.

 

“And what about your dreams?” Again, Adora feels wrong-footed, somehow.

 

_“My dreams?”_ The echo comes back jagged and guarded, and the queen raises her brow in question.

 

“Yes, your dreams,” she says, simply. “Bow mentioned you were having some trouble sleeping. Perhaps you aren’t used to them quite yet. I have been led to believe dreams are outlawed, within the Horde.”

 

“Not _outlawed_ , just strongly discouraged—“

 

“Discouraged with _beatings_ ,” the queen grinds out, with a touch too much bite held in her tone for Adora’s liking. She bristles, a little. Dreams are one of the only things Adora actively dislikes about Bright Moon. They’re impractical; painful; _exhausting_. Who wants their minds to be  _doing things_ when they’re sleeping? That’s not what sleep is for.

 

“Yes, discouraged with beatings,” she confirms, brusquely, “But, it never happened to me. I didn’t dream.” And it’s the truth. In the Fright Zone, sleep – for her – was simple. Blackness, foggy haze and half-formed, shifting shadows. It would be a welcome change to what she was experiencing, now.

 

Queen Angella only nods. “Of course. But you dream now?” _No; yes; can you repeat the question?_ She remains silent, and the queen sighs. “Adora, I—I _understand_ that it must be _difficult_ for you to adjust to this. But you must understand: dreams are never just dreams. Not here. Not anywhere in Etheria. There is always a reason for them.”

 

_I know the reason for them, already._ Adora can’t look at her, and when she speaks, after a long moment, her voice is as quiet and soft as it’s ever been. “I… I _have_ them, but they’re not—they won’t help you.”

 

The queen leaps on this, imploring. “ _Any_ dreams you have will be helpful, Adora, as insignificant as they may seem to you. They are vital in the fight against the Horde.” She almost wants to laugh at that.

 

“ _No_ ,” Adora says, a touch too forcefully, before remembering herself. “ _Your majesty_ , they’re—“ _not important, just things that give me heartache, just things that would turn your stomach,_ “—nothing.” The queen sits back, looking strained.

 

“You don’t want to tell me,” she says, softly. Adora looks up at her, and can’t speak. Can’t deny it. “And that, is _fine_ ,” she says it almost like it is. “But you _must_ speak to someone.”

 

Silence reigns for several seconds. Adora breaks it. “Your majesty?” She falters. 

 

The queen appears to be thoughtful. “You, Glimmer and Bow might do well from a trip to Mystacor. Casta might be of some assistance to your training, she might help some with your— _control_. And I think it would do you some good. Mystacor’s court, if it is anything like it was ten years ago – is… _very_ entertaining. Besides, you have been in Bright Moon too long. It won’t help to have you cooped up in one place for too long.” The words sting, a little – it's not the first time Adora had considered that she may have overstayed her welcome in this queen’s kingdom, but she bows lowly and tries her best to school her features.

 

“Whatever you think is best, your majesty.” Her voice sounds brittle, even to her own ears.


	2. CATRA I

**Chapter II**

_**Beginning of the End** _

 

Catra learnt early on that the Fright Zone was a living, breathing thing. 

 

Its skin was forged from fortified steel, dotted with constellations of constantly twisting gears and cogs. Its heart was in the court rooms; the chambers of it were made of prison cells. Its bowels were in the labyrinth. Its stomach was hidden in the net of training rooms, digesting new recruits and spitting out soldiers. Its eyes were always Hordak, his minions; and his second-in-command.

 

For the longest time, she had been afraid of it; afraid it would eat her alive before she could ever scream for help; that it would chew her into something _ugly_ – a monster. Her childhood nightmares often were that she would be twisted or beaten into the shape of something useful to them, like scrap-metal in a blacksmith’s – before being melted down when she broke.

 

But now, as she strides through the veins of corridors, world dipped green by the overhanging lights, she fears for nothing. 

 

She is only _angry_ , because she has the good sense to be.

 

 _That lying, cheating snake. I’ll kill him,_ she thinks, viciously.

 

Scorpia lags a little behind her - as she _should_ , what with Catra being her superior officer - but still, too close for comfort; not quite far enough that she can’t try and make her typical, _gear-grinding_ conversation. She can tune most of it out to static sound, at this point, but still, it rankles.

_“Say, Catra, why’re you going so fast?”_

_“Hey, Catra, do you remember that time we were on a boat? That was fun, huh? How about that time when—”_

 

“We’re a little late for court, now, don’t’cha think?”

 

 _This,_ she catches hold of, dignifying with a response: “Haven’t you heard, Scorpia?” she tosses over her shoulder, coolly, “Being late is fashionable, now.” It’s not – but it will be.

 

“If you say so.” She can feel the air behind her _shift_ as Scorpia shrugs and – _yes, definitely_ too close for comfort. But, they’re nearing the side entrance of the court room, and there will be time enough later for a repeat of their ten-foot-radius-personal-space talk.

 

“Yes, if I say so. _Exactly._ ”

 

“Huh?” Scorpia’s brows are knitted with confusion, “what’ya sayin’ now?” Catra sighs.

 

“Nothing. Look, wait here, I can handle the guard.” She steps forward, claws striking the floor in quick, sharp clicks. “Octavia,” she smiles, “so glad to hear of your promotion to _door duty_.” It’s bait – Octavia doesn’t take it. Her face doesn’t twitch, but she’s pretty sure her right eye must roll behind its patch. Her face has got to do _something._

 

“You’re late,” the woman says, simply, gesturing to the timer on her wrist, flashing an obnoxious red.

 

Catra checks her own, _non-existent_ watch on her wrist. “Funny, mine says I’m _just_ on time.” She flashes her teeth, bares them in a smile, and Octavia leans back against the wall, face as impassive as ever.

 

They size each other up for several dragging seconds, before, finally, she grunts. “You’re not. You’re late. Go through, though.”

 

“Scorpia,” she calls, but her eyes are still fixed on Octavia’s face. The woman returns her gaze, steadily. Catra shrugs, walks on. But just as she rounds the corner, she’s pretty sure she hears a snort from the guard, and – craning her neck – sees her shoulders are shaking with silent laughter.

 

 _Dramatic as ever, Catra,_ she thinks she hears her mutter, lightly.

 

 _You have no idea,_ Catra wants to call back, over her shoulder.

 

In the semi-darkness of the corridor – _they should really fix that lightbulb_ , she exhales a long gust of breath, closing her eyes – _just for a moment_ \- and—

 

*

_Octavia hates Catra from the start._

_The story goes something like this: Octavia has just been given the title of Carer and Enforcer. Freshly out of the training rooms, she is given the fantastic job of changing Catra’s nappies. Or, not just that, not specifically that, but…_ that _._

_She makes a habit of running her mouth about it, and about Catra, as much as she can._

_“Runt of the litter, this one,” she would say, swaddling the baby and placing it in the cot. “Tiny, always crying,” as she fed her a bottle of synthesised milk, “anyone ever told you that you stink? Or that when you cry you sound like unoiled battle tanks’ gears grinding on sand?”_

_She goes too far, one day, or so the Enforcers say, when she sets Catra down and jabs a finger at her in front of a few of them._

_“You won’t make it a year into training,_ no, no you won’t _– God, how did I get this job.” She’s using as much of a baby voice as one can when they are a seven-foot Horde soldier with a brooding tenor, blue skin and biceps that could crush a man’s skull. A few of the other Enforcers snigger behind their hands._

_Apparently, the public humiliation of it triggers something in Catra. Even then._

_Octavia leaves her thumb hanging in the cot for a second too long, and Catra – cracking open a bleary, baby eye – leans up to bite down on it with the only fang she’s managed to tooth in six months._

_Octavia roars in pain, as the other Enforcers roar with laughter. “Nasty little bastard!” she hisses out. Catra only gurgles and smiles – no, Octavia will insist, later, she doesn’t smile. She bares her fang at her like the little beast she is._ _Her thumb is bleeding._

_“I think,” one of the other Enforcers pipes up, “she might last longer than originally predicted, Octavia.”_

_“Shut your mouth, Felix,” she snarls._

_She promises, over the years, that she’ll get even with Catra. It’s the closest she ever comes to humour. “I’m getting even when you’re nine,” she says, when Catra is eight. She said eight when Catra was seven. “Just you wait, you’ll lose that thumb.”_

_Catra only rolls her eyes. “You won’t. You’re full of shrapnel.”_

_She grins, roguishly, when Octavia makes a sputtering sound and growls,_ _“Hey! Who taught you to say that?”_

_“Lonnie.” The response is automatic. Octavia snorts and rolls her eyes._

_“Liar. That means it’s Adora. Lonnie hates your guts.”_

_“It wasn’t Adora!” But the heat behind her words betrays her. Octavia smirks, kneels down, and takes it a little too far:_

_“You know, I heard Adora’s the strongest in your class. So, I’ll tell you what. I’ll take_ Adora’s _thumb, instead – you’re such a scrawny thing, you’re about the size of one – and we’ll consider it even. How does that sound?"_

_The claws rip out of nowhere, catching and dragging along the film of her eye. Octavia screeches, rearing back. Catra hisses at her, but not before she steps down and tells her, with icy calm blistering through her:_

_“You’re a dumb-face. Anyone ever told you that?”_

_“Argh! Bugger it all, Catra!” She screams out, swatting at her furiously with one hand as she clutches her scratched eye with the other. Catra is caught on the nose, and reels with the smarting pain of it, scampering off._

_Later, while stationed outside a room of carefully monitored newborns, eye now bandaged, she hears a call:_

_“Hey, Octavia,” Adora is leaning imperiously over the bannisters of the training ramp, clutching Catra’s hand, looking livid, “you’re a dumb-face.”_

 

 

*

 

The light of the court halls hits her lids, and she opens them with difficulty, coming to herself.

 

She has the advantage, tactically, as well as visually – that the side entrance opens on to a steel balcony, looking down on the masses of Horde elite gathered below. The balcony is cast in the shadow of the Horde court, almost invisible from view. It’s perfect.

 

Hordak’s court is in full swing when she arrives.

 

It’s less exciting than it sounds. Translation: There is a nine-foot-tall Horde representative towering over the podium, delivering a speech on… military tactics ( _how inventive_ ) while the assembled Force Captains hide their yawns in their coat sleeves.

 

It’s nothing that a Horde _recruit_ wouldn’t know, by the sounds of it, but Hordak lets him speak, reclined on his throne, and claps almost politely when he’s done. There is a general muttering from the gathered crowd. She can tell they’re waiting; hungry for something.

 

It’s time, then.

 

Pulling at Scorpia’s coattails to get her attention, she gestures for her to join the throngs of Force Captains below. The balcony has a spiral staircase leading down onto the first floor of the atrium, and Scorpia probably won’t attract too much attention at this moment.

 

Scorpia shoots her a questioning glance. Catra points to the stairwell. Scorpia shoots her a questioning glance. Catra points _again_ to the stairwell. _Scorpia shoots her a questioning glance_ —

 

“Lord Hordak, it is an _honour_.” Catra curses. A humanoid man has stepped forward, baring his scarred face like a badge of honour, and is now on his hands and knees in front of Hordak _. Kiss ass._ She turns back to Scorpia.

 

“Wait in the corridor. This might take a minute,” she hisses to her, and finally the look Scorpia shoots her isn’t questioning. It’s _afraid_.

 

“Catra, are you sure this is a good—?”

 

Catra does not have time for this. “ _Wait in the corridor,_ _Force Captain_.” Scorpia does as she is ordered without further complaint, and Catra turns back, gripping hard at the metal railing of the bannisters.

 

“Step forward, Force Captain Eljok.” Hordak commands. Catra’s eyes have narrowed themselves to near slits.

 

She taps her fingers along the hollow steel bannister of the balcony, causing echoing little _pings_ to scatter around the hall. It attracts more than a few stares from the crowds of onlookers. _Good_ , she thinks, viciously, _I want them to stare_.

 

Captain Eljok begins, clearing his throat, “It has come to my—“

 

“ _A little louder_ , if you don’t mind, Force Captain Eljok,” she calls, “I’m having trouble making you out.”

 

Hordak doesn’t even turn his head. Eljok, however…

 

He jerks where he stands, twisting around at the sound of her voice, eyes tracking her as she makes her painfully slow descent from the balcony to the floor of the Great Hall. Hordak still hasn’t turned, but she can make out that his lip has curled, _ever so slightly_. She bites back a grin, before stalking into the middle of the hall.

 

Bowing deeply, she smiles. “My apologies for my tardiness, Lord Hordak. There was a breakthrough in my subordinate’s research.” It’s a breakthrough she has had on hold for three days, now, and Hordak probably knows it, but he accepts her excuse without issue.

 

Eljok sniffs, pointedly. Hordak ignores him. “Rise, Catra,” he calls, leaning back into his throne. She rises, and in a few short steps comes to a stop, standing straight-backed beside his throne.

 

“ _Now_ , Force Captain Eljok, you have come before the court today to speak on a matter that you claim is of great importance. _Speak_.”

 

Captain Eljok eyes Catra for several seconds, before nodding. “Of course, my lord. It is… in regards to the _lack of progress_ on the front of the battle against the rebellion.” _Oh, is that all?_  

 

“Lack of progress? Now, Eljok,” Hordak leans back in his throne, all false ease, “that implies we have been trying to make any at all. We are at a standstill, in regards to the war, while we recalibrate. It is a _ceasefire_ , for the moment.” The word _ceasefire_ echoes around the chambers, and again there is a wave of mutterings.

 

The word is not Etherian – the Horde do not know it. Catra doesn’t, either, but she can read between the lines.

 

Eljok is clearly having trouble controlling his temper. “Yes, my lord, I understand that. But, _why?”_

 

He pauses, as if realising what he has said, and bites his lip hard enough to draw blood, clearly thinking that he has overstepped. But, _still_ , he holds his ground. Only Catra and Hordak – the ones who have a clear view of his face, catch the movement.

 

“You would do well to not question your superiors, _Force Captain Eljok_ ,” Catra spits out the title like bile, but Lord Hordak raises a hand to quiet her, his eyes not leaving Eljok. When they do, he addresses the room at large:

 

“I am sure,” he says, rising to face the crowds of onlookers, a wall of white muscle and steel, “that many of you are wondering this. Your questions are understandable. Why do we wait? We are a powerful nation, an empire. After all, we have conquered the states of princesses before.” This is met with a wall of noise – sounds of agreement, _assent,_ as though Hordak had spoken the words of their mind.

 

Hordak begins to pace on the podium, face drawn with aggression, as if he – too – experiences their frustrations. It’s an act, clearly; a piece of showmanship, but it seems to get the Force Captains going, and Catra watches – trying to hide her amusement.

 

“Within the _Princess’ Alliance_ ,” he says the words like they amuse him, “only seven remain of their original fourteen. The others are lost to them – either through joining our cause or perishing at the hands of our _mighty_ Horde,” a few cheers fly up; Hordak presses on, "there are fears, however, within the ranks of us, that we might surrender, _lay down our weapons or lie on our bellies and let the princesses take what they want.”_ The crowds are in tumult, now.

 

“And to this, I say,” the Horde soldiers lean in, hold their breaths as Hordak hisses: “ _over my dead body_. We consolidate; we grow in numbers every day, through recruitments of youths within our colonies. Right now, we have a skilled team—” _wouldn’t go that far,_ “—of individuals researching how to turn the princess’ runestones against them, and—”

 

“What _research team?”_ Eljok snaps. Catra’s eyes flick to him as Eljok’s words boom around the hall like they are caught in an echo-chamber. She represses the urge to roll her eyes. _Here we go._

 

There is a pause. Hordak straightens - turning to face him, taking a slow step forward – and towering over the humanoid with little to no effort. Catra can see Eljok’s instinctive reaction to take a step back, but he fights it, and instead draws himself up, craning his neck to look him in the eye.

 

“Well?” There’s a slight tremor in his voice, now. _He didn’t think that one through,_ Catra thinks, almost laughing. “Who, my Lord, is conducting this _research_ into alternative methods? Her?” His arm snaps out, and he points an accusatory finger at Catra. His next words bite. “The _child?”_

 

Catra can’t quite contain herself, either; leaps forward. “I’m not some _kid_. I’m nineteen - a woman, a soldier, former Force Captain and now Lord Hodak’s second-in-command. I fought Shadow Weaver, and _won_. I fought She-Ra, on several occasions, and _won,”_ a slight stretch of the truth, but it’s necessary. The crowd tense.

 

“This is of little consequence,” Eljok says, dismissively.

 

Catra grinds her teeth together. _“Is it.”_

 

Eljok takes a step forward. “Shadow Weaver was _severely weakened_ and compromised. She-Ra still has little control of her powers. And you were not promoted to second-in-command for _any_ of the reasons you just listed. You were _rewarded for defeat in battle._ ”

 

The room is silent as the dead, now. Catra stalks towards him, their noses inches apart as she snarls, “I led an attack that got us closer to victory against Queen Angella than we have in twelve years. Than  _you_ have in your seven years of service.”

 

“You still _lost;_ you still cost us—”

 

 _“Enough.”_ The pair turn. Hordak has returned to his throne, leaning back and looking rather bored. “Eljok. I believe you have made your intentions for this meeting very clear. Do you intend to challenge Catra for the position of my second-in-command?”

 

“I do,” Eljok says, stiffly.

 

Hordak nods. “Catra, do you accept the challenge posed to you by Force Captain Eljok, _or do you wish to forfeit?”_ It was standard protocol, but Catra still felt her face grow hot that he would even need to ask.

 

“ _Of course_ I accept it,” she snarls, eyes still trained on Eljok’s, livid.

 

"Very well. Catra, as per tradition, the one challenged may select the mode of combat. What is your weapon of choice?”

 

Catra bites the inside of her cheek. “Training staffs,” she says, finally.

 

Hordak’s eyebrows raise. A murmur of laughter rolls through the crowds, a few whistles here and there. Eljok rolls his eyes.

 

“ _Funny,”_ he mutters under his breath to her, before turning to the room at large, “Very well. Have two training staffs fetched. I accept.”

 

“Good,” Hordak says, “then we can begin.” Catra can’t be seen to be weak, not now, but—her eyes were so heavy. There was such a pull to shut them. She only needed a moment.

 

Right before the world snaps beneath her lids, she hears the murmur of an Enforcer standing guard by the double doors: “Business as usual, I suppose.”

 

*

_In the weeks before their first training simulation, Adora works like Catra has never seen her do before. She pounds her fists into punching bags like they’re princesses – she even catches her calling one “Evil Queen Angella”, one time, and teases her about it for three days straight._

_“I don’t understand how you’re not taking this seriously, Catra,” Adora snaps, one day, when she’s just exhausted herself on the obstacle course, while Catra’s spent the last half hour playing with the fraying string of her sleeve. “It’s two days until our first ever simulation. This assessment could mean everything. Lonnie is nearly on the verge of tears half the time, now. Kyle just tried to lift weights. Kyle.”_

_Catra just shrugs, leans back, tail twitching. “It’s a simulation. It isn’t real. Therefore, no real danger. Duh. Pretty solid logic, if you ask me.” Adora grabs a washcloth, wiping down her brow and squinting at Catra._

_“You don’t know that. There could be real threats, or they could be deciding who’s the weakest, or—”_

_Catra wheels away from her. “Just, shut up about it, OK?”_

 

*

Catra opens her eyes and meets Eljok’s. He looks too confident.

 

She’ll change that.

 

“Begin,” Hordak’s voice booms.

 

Faces smeared with lurid green half-light, crowded by the shadows of the Horde soldiers surrounding the make-shift arena, they circle each other.

 

She’s thinking a little too much, she knows. It’s difficult, because her eyes are fixed on Eljok. She’s prepared when he makes his first forward lunge for her – thrust; she defends; strike back; he predicts it – but she can _feel_ the eyes of each of the Horde soldiers, tracking the twitch and ripple of each and every muscle in her body.

 

It’s _fight fright_ , she knows – the feeling that comes with the near-constant assessment from others during battle, not uncommon in Horde soldiers or recruits. But it’s more than that. She can’t appear weak – not to them. One wrong move, one slip up, and they’ll be on her before she can even make a sound.

 

She wheels on the axis of her heel as he tries to attack her from behind, taking advantage of her sidelong glance at the crowds that pool around them, and aims a furious stab of her training stick at his groin. The crowd _hisses,_ Eljok does, too, and she lets her other arm – the one protecting her face - drop at the sound, momentarily.

 

He’s on her in a flash, aiming a flying strike at her unprotected cheek. “Don’t fight dirty,” he grinds out. She is knocked back by the blow, but the crowds push her forward into the centre of the arena, and she grins despite the pain.

 

“Don’t sneak up on me, then. I don’t remember there being rules to this.” He laughs at that.

 

“There aren’t rules,” he lunges again; she blocks with ease, “just  _customs_ , and since you’re _going to lose_ , _”_ he cracks his staff into the space between her ribs. She reels back, gasping, and again is pushed back into the fray by forceful hands, “you’d do well to follow them. You don’t want people thinking you’re weak _and_ impolite _,_ do you?”

 

She pulls back and lunges for _him_ , this time, and it’s apparently exactly what he’s been waiting for. She’s clumsy – it’s a jerking, angry movement. His boot flies out of nowhere, hooking beneath her legs and knocking them from under her before she can reach him. She drops, hits the hard metal with a bang, back of her head striking the floor.

 

She gasps out.  Black spots are beginning to swim in her vision. Her staff is there, less than an arm’s length away, if she could just—

 

But, _again_ , her eyes are so heavy, but she has to stay awake, _she must stay awake—_

 

*

_“About the simulation,” Catra says into the black of the barracks._

_Adora doesn’t turn, but she feels the bed springs shift beside her, and knows that she’s listening. “What about it?” It’s the night before their annual assessments._ All _of them. Sparring; written; and – all new: simulations. Curse the Horde education system._

_“What if… what if the simulation is something so…” horrific; terrifying; princess spawn, “_ … yeah, _that I just kind of… freeze?”_

_Adora’s voice is heavy – with sleep or confusion, she doesn’t know. “Why do you think you’ll do that?”_

*

 

He’s standing over her, now, smiling in a way far from kind. She wants to scream; or kick his ass; or do anything that isn’t this – lying frozen and head spinning.

 

*

_“Well, when something really scares me, sometimes I just… kind of… freeze. Like, without thinking about it.”_

_“Oh,” Adora says, “oh. Well, you won’t do that.” She says it like it’s nothing. Catra scowls into the dark._

_“How would you know_?”

 

*

 

He’s got her sandwiched between his legs, the next time her eyes rip open. Her arms are pinned to her sides, and the width of the staff is held against her throat. She can’t move, _she can’t move._

 

*

_“Well, I get that sometimes, too. Everyone’s got it. It’s a—what did that cadet call it, oh yeah, a fight, flight or freeze thing.”_

_“And, I guess your instinct is to fight,” Catra says, dryly, because - what else could it be?_

_Adora does turn then, and leans in to Catra to whisper: “No, actually. It’s to run.”_

 

*

 

He lands a blow on the side of her cheek. _“Yield,”_ he roars, shifting his weight to bare down on her.

 

*

 

_“Yours might be to freeze—“_

 

*

 

But the movement dislodges something - _her arm_. She twists a little, minutely, testing, and— _yes_. She nearly sobs in relief, but again the stick is at her throat, and he’s piling on the pressure by the second, and she can’t breathe, _she can’t breathe—_

 

*

 

_“—but, we’ve got to fight, Catra. We won’t make it unless we fight.”_

 

And far, away, she hears another voice, an older one, but the same. Still, the same. Still, _Adora_. It screams.

 

_“Fight, Catra!”_

 

*

She rips her hand from under him, seizes the training stick lying on the floor, striking him in the side of the head with it. He tumbles off of her, weakened, and it’s her moment.

 

She hits him with everything.

 

Each blow is painful – her ears still ring, eyes still water, but her teeth are bared and she doesn’t stop hitting. She hits him with a force she doesn’t know she has – with a precision she didn’t know she possessed. Until he’s limp beneath her and gasping, nose bloody and face bruised, stained purple and red. She raises one end of the staff, pressing lightly into the column of his throat.

 

 _“Yield,”_ she hisses, and her voice isn’t all her own. She feels something _whisper_ it, in the back of her mind, a familiar presence, like an old piece of her come home.

 

He nods. Once. And it’s all Catra needs to lower the staff. She relaxes, slumping a little as she feels the presence withdraw, slightly. All of a sudden, the pain of her wounds hit her; the burning shapes of cuts; the sickening throbbing of bruises. She wants to leave – she thinks she might be sick.

 

But he leaps up, suddenly. And he’s on her again, striking at her bruised cheek with his staff and sending her tumbling into the floor. She feels an anger rail against him inside of her, something cry out in protest:  _he yielded._ But the anger isn’t hers. None of that is hers. She’s still reeling from the shock of it.

 

The crowd roars in protest, because _he yielded; no, you need to say I yield to yield; but he nodded! That means he yielded._

 

“Now, now, Eljok,” Hordak calls from the throne, calmly, “I thought you said you didn’t fight dirty.” Eljok wheels around.

 

“I didn’t say it,” he says, almost petulantly. “According to the rules, _if this child had bothered to read them—"_

 

She gets to her feet, staggering a little, and – clutching her staff with both hands – rears up, smashing it into the side of his head.

 

He drops, and doesn’t get up. Silence. Then, a Force Captain kneels; reaches to check for his pulse.

 

“He’s alive. Just out cold.” He sounds a little disappointed. 

 

“Does _that mean he yields_ , or do I have to wait until he wakes up to make him say it?” she asks, dryly, and there’s a scattering of laughter.

 

“No. It counts,” one of them says, and she can see by the glint in her eyes that she's impressed.

 

In fact – she turns, twists around to look and each and every face on display – it’s there, on each of their faces. In the slightly-too-wide eyes, the parted mouths and puckered brows, even on the shining foreheads of court officials. _They’re afraid of her._

 

It’s the highest compliment. She feels the adrenaline of it spike through her, she nearly _glows_ with it, and—it’s like something inside of her snaps shut, _hard_. The presence she felt before is gone.  She is alone again.

 

“Enough for today,” Hordak calls. “Catra, with me, there are some things we must discuss.”

 

She nods, once, and the crowds part for her as she follows him out of the court room and onto a Fright Zone shuttle lift.

 

“You did well, in there,” Hordak tells her, as the shuttle lift speeds them up to the top floor. She frowns, still feeling woozy, and says nothing, so he continues: “You defended your honour, as well as mine.”

 

“He’s been looking for trouble for a while, now,” she says, finally, “I knew he’d go too far, today. But—he nearly won.” He nods, and she won’t close her eyes. She can’t slip away from this. Not now.

 

“This was not about you,” he says. “Eljok disapproved of my plans; he felt they were too risky; relied too heavily on your research being a success. He was compromised.”

 

“You told _Eljok_ your military plans; but not your second-in-command?” It stings - she can feel the shame of it crawling up her spine.

 

He levels her with a hard look. “Yes.” There’s a challenge there, and she leans back.

 

 _Right._ “Forgive me, Lord Hordak. I forget myself; I overstepped, just then.”

 

“You did,” he nods, but he doesn’t appear to be too angry about it.

 

She bows. “I’m sorry,” she says, because she is; because she needs to be.

 

He continues to watch her as the shuttle lift carries on its journey upwards, and she doesn’t think she’ll get a response, after such a long pause.

 

At length, however, he speaks. “No, you’re not,” he says, simply. And Catra finds she has nothing to say to that.

 

 


	3. ADORA II

**Chapter III**

_**Mystacor: Day One** _

 

The night begins like all the others.

 

They’re camped out, just off the road to Mystacor, bedding on grass and swallowed whole by the covering of trees, shielding them from the gaping mouth of the empty sky. Adora had offered to stand guard, earlier, but Bow and Glimmer just shook their heads.

 

“I’ll take first watch,” Bow smiles, as the light of the sun dims, bleeds out golden against the skyline, “I’ll wake you when it’s your turn.” Adora is fairly certain he _won’t,_ but she can only thank him, roll over on her side, and bury her face in a cushion of long grass.

 

 She’s out like a light. She  _is_ exhausted, after all.

 

*

 

_It starts with the familiar. The haze of half-lit memories; the touch of intangible things – like the memory of sunlight when all you know now is darkness. There’s a patience there; a warmth; an understanding, but overlaid with them are the things that live in her currently: the slicing things that tear at her insides; the things she can’t name, has never been given words for._

_But, tonight – in between them – there are flashes, different from before. Shadows creep along the edges of her vision; pushing against her peripheries before pulling back again. Sounds seep in from somewhere real, far away from the Whispering Woods, blur together with the memories._

_In this one, she hits a punching bag, imagining it’s a princess, but the impact of her fist makes a sharp click like a heel on steel. Something’s off._

_There are flashes of sound -  real sound, she can tell, more than just the echo chamber of her mind - here and there, streaming in through the cracks, growing wider by the second._

_And then the real world crashes in._

_Now, she’s watching from a raised ramp as a man bows before Hordak. No. The world swims. Now, she’s bowing to Hordak, saying words in a voice that isn’t her own._

_“Rise, Catra,” he booms, and she feels her blood – her own blood, the blood of her real body, back with Bow and Glimmer, turn to ice. But, powerless, muscles moving of their own accord, she rises._

_The world seems to splinter, and time jumps again, and she’s snarling in the face of the man. She can feel Catra’s anger, her embarrassment; her need to fight him, to show him, to make him pay. Time skips again, but it’s only slightly, now. The gaps are getting shorter._

_“Catra, do you accept the challenge posed to you by Force Captain Eljok, or do you wish to forfeit?”_

_The heat of humiliation spirals up her spine. “Of course I accept it,” she snarls._

_And then she’s submerged in memories again. Catra, younger; fears burning beneath indifference; broken and jagged but worth the effort, every time._

_When she returns to Catra, she’s in a makeshift ring, choked in black smoke and the bleeding green lights. She feels her nervousness, the flip of her belly when she catches the watchful gaze of a Force Captain - a predator’s stare._

_She feels the roughness of phantom hands pushing her forward; feels the burn of a strike; the cut of words; the tingle of ever-present eyes on the line of her neck. Her movements are clumsy, jerking; the training staff slick with the sweat of her palms._

_Catra will lose. The realisation hits her all at once._

_The man is a head taller than her; built stronger; clearly older, and he has seen battle – judging by the mottled clusters of scars that line his cheeks. He knows what he is doing. For all of Catra’s wire and fire, she has none of the brute force that is necessary to win something like this._

_He will win, and Catra will lose, on her own, and that will be the end of it._

_And she’s fine with it, almost. She’s fine with it until she remembers what it means to lose a duel in the Fright Zone. She’s fine with it until Catra falls, and she feels her pain; her struggle for breath – her keeling, gasping,_ failing _attempts at it._

_Until he’s on her._

_Something shifts, then. She can’t explain it, but she knows what Catra must remember, what she must think of in this moment. And so, she forces it forward – the night before the simulation; the pressing blackness of the barracks and the confessions made to the dark._

_She remembers it, and—when Catra finally comes to, she knows she can’t let her lose. She doesn’t know what she does, only that_ she mustn’t lose, can’t lose _– and, all at once, she’s tumbling into her._

_She pushes everything into it; takes the brunt of the pain; her burning need for air; the searing cuts she can’t see; the pulsing heat of her bruised and beaten face. She takes it all, and pushes on, pours everything into it – piling it all into each hit, all the grace she has, powering Catra forward with every last piece of her._

_The man falls to the ground, and she could let go; could pull back a little, but together, they press the point of the staff into his throat, and whisper the command:_

_“Yield.” He nods, and she forces herself to pull back, to be the silent observer again._

_But then he hits her, hits Catra, and Adora’s there again, crying out in protest, because he yielded. The bastard yielded. That should have meant it was done._

_He comes up with some pedantic, piece-of-shrapnel line of defence, and Adora feels Catra rise, stagger— and club him on the head with her training staff, knocking him out cold._

_Catra cracks some awful one-liner, and she almost wants to laugh, but then she sees the faces of the Horde, surrounding her, and it’s not as funny anymore._

_They’re afraid of her. They’re afraid of Catra. And it’s a compliment, in the Horde, she remembers. It’s a compliment. Catra takes it as one._

_She feels the thrum of pleasure that comes with it – the feeling of control; of safety. Catra loves this, and it hits Adora like a physical blow._

_Because— like this, surrounded on all sides by Fright Zone green, clothed in Horde red, nestled in the back of Catra’s mind — Adora loves it, too._

*

 

She tears herself awake, gasping. It’s still night. They’re still camped by the road to Mystacor. The world still spins the right way; she knows which side she fights on. She is safe.

 

A few feet away from her, Bow and Glimmer both sleep soundly, leant against opposing tree stumps. She smiles; sighs; stretches.

 

She stands guard for the rest of the night.

 

*

 

They rise and get moving early in the morning, before the sun has fully risen. Up the steady incline, towards the clifftop, as the trees begin to thin, Bow slows to a stop at her side. “You said her name,” he tells her.

 

Adora turns to him, sharply. “What?” Glimmer is walking on ahead, leading the way, and Bow talks in hushed tones.

 

“Sorry, it’s just. Last night. You said her name, in your sleep. That girl – the one you fought. At Salineas and Bright Moon. The girl who gave you those—“ he gestures to her back, uncertainly. _Scars._ That’s who she is, to him. Catra, _to all her friends,_ spans the length of the claw marks, down the line of her spine, and no farther.

 

She doesn’t reply, so he presses on, reaching for her. “Is that why you’ve been acting so… _off_ lately? Do you have nightmares about… _them?”_ He’s not off the mark, not entirely, but it’s wrong in a way he won’t understand. He’s from Bright Moon, after all.

 

“It’s nothing. Really. I’m sorry if I disturbed you.” His eyes don’t change, so she stops looking at them.

 

He sighs. “Adora, you didn’t—”

 

“Hey, you two!” Glimmer calls from up the craggy face of the clifftop, “Let’s pick up the pace a little! I want to get to Mystacor in time for breakfast.” Both their stomachs rumble in response. “Guess I’m not alone in the feeling,” she laughs, over her shoulder.

 

*

 

They make it to Mystacor in the nick of time, apparently, because Casta’s morning feast is only just beginning when they arrive. The castle is alive with sounds and smells, and there is the persistent thrum of magic, seeping through the walls and pressing against the barriers of the city.

 

Casta rushes to greet them, scooping up Bow and Glimmer in her arms, and planting smacking kisses on each of their foreheads that leave rings of black lipstick. Glimmer hurriedly tries to wipe hers off, looking chagrined, while Bow only sighs and smiles.

 

Adora hangs back, awkwardly. When Casta finally turns to her, she bows. “Sorceress Casta,” she greets her, uncertain. When she rises, she finds Casta is still staring at her, mouth parted with surprise, before she bursts into peals of laughter and throws her arms around _Adora,_ as well.

 

“Such formalities aren’t necessary, Adora! Did you get the sweater I sent you?” she asks, as she pulls back, “You’re not wearing it— was it too small? I tried to make it in She-Ra’s size, so you wouldn’t have to change out of it every time you transformed—does it not work that way? I should have had you fitted, but I wasn’t sure whether it was _appropriate_ to ask you to turn into She-Ra just to take your measurements. _Is it?”_

 

Adora can’t quite process the flurry of sound this early in the morning. “What sweater?” she says, finally, voice a frightened croak. Casta stares at her for a moment, before wheeling on Glimmer.

 

“You _did_ give her the sweater, right, Glimmer?”

 

Glimmer shifts on the balls of her feet, uncomfortably. “I may have… lost the sweater. In the Whispering Woods. Somewhere.” _Translation: The sweater is dead; I beat it with a stick and then I burnt it, I killed it, I—_ “am _really_ sorry, Aunt Casta. I didn’t even realise until I got back to Bright Moon, and then—”

 

“Well, it’s no matter,” Casta waves a hand, smiling and dismissive, “I can make another.” Glimmer sags, visibly.

 

*

 

After breakfast, they are shown to their rooms. They’re nice – a welcome change, if Adora is honest. There are no bubbling fountains or bathtubs made of dip-dyed ivory. It’s _simple._ A simple bed, draped in sheets the colour of midnight. Shadows can fall, here. Light will catch them.

 

She’s given time to settle in, but she can’t expect to have the entire day to herself. She doesn’t want it, either. She needs to keep busy – the solid comfort of the bed looks far too tempting, from this angle.

 

When midday comes, there is a knock at the door. Rising from where she was unpacking her things, she goes to answer it. A guard drops low, before offering her up some folded cloth the colour of teal.

 

“Robes, for you, She-Ra. From Sorceress Castaspella. She says that you should wear them. For your training. She’s… _requested_ that you meet her in half an hour, in the Hall of Sorcerers.”

 

Adora smiles. “Thank you,” she bows slightly, taking them from him, “do I need to, um, bring anything?” _My sword?_

 

“Just yourself, she says,” he drops into a bow again, and is away. Pulling the doors to, she inspects the gift.

 

The robes Casta gives her are… difficult, to say the least. There are buckles – a _lot_ of them – and beads, and a lot of things jingle and catch the light, nearly blinding her as she shifts and tries to shimmy her way into it. When she finally thinks she’s got it, she feels like she’s caught in a death-trap in disguise (a poor disguise, if she’s honest, it looks terrifying on and off) and she doesn’t think she can manage to walk to _her door_ wearing it, let alone get to the Hall of Sorcerers.

 

Sighing, she shakes her head, and shirks it off of her, settling instead for some of the clothes she packed from Bright Moon. Practical; loose fitting. Better.

 

*

 

 _Her Horde uniform is finally disposed of after the attack on Bright Moon. Queen Angella had insisted she take a bath following the attack, which…_ yeah,  _fair enough. A little impolite, since she’d hugged her about ten minutes previously, but sure._

_When she returns to her bedside, skin rubbed a raw pink and wrapped in a bathrobe, her neatly folded uniform is gone from her bed. In its place, she finds soft, blue tunic and loose trousers set out at the end of it._

_It’s nothing like the tight-fitting, clean-cut uniforms of the Horde. Her old uniform had clung to her skin like tar – which sounds horrible, but it was... solid.  When you’re fighting – you like to know what’s there and what isn’t. It helps ground you._

_“Hey, uh, where’s my stuff?” she asks the guard, stationed outside her door, poking her head out of it. “My clothes,” she elaborates, at the guard’s questioning glance._

_“My apologies, She-Ra, I assumed you knew. They were taken to be incinerated,” she tells her, “orders of Queen Angella herself.”_

_“Incinerated?” she repeats, incredulously. “Why would she—” Of course, then the seemingly endless list of reasons why she would want them destroyed hits her, and she swallows; goes back inside her rooms and tries not to shut her doors with too hard a bang._

_“I’m sure she wasn’t doing it to upset you,” Bow reasons, later, when she’s vented some of her frustrations to him. Glimmer isn’t there, at the time – it feels a little strange to complain about your friend’s mum to them._

_“Yeah, and it didn’t upset me, obviously.”_ Obviously.  _"Clothes aren’t important. I just—I still wish that she’d—” asked. “—you know what? This is stupid, I should just forget about it.”_

*

The Lunarium is empty for all but her when she reaches it – purple marble tunnelling out, lined and criss-crossed with dots of gold, here and there. She runs a palm along the lines of one golden engraving, sliced deep into the wall, at the side of the entrance. It’s a strange combination of connected dots – it looks a little like an archer, if she twists her head _just_ slightly. She peers at the inscription: _ORION._ Whatever _that_ means.

 

Pressing on, she reaches the Hall of Sorcerers in no time, and again, it is empty, for all but her—and Casta, apparently.

 

“Well, I must say,” she says, with a smiling glint in her eyes, when she catches sight of Adora's clothing choice, “compared to most sorcerers, you look like a _monk.”_

 

 _Monk._ She doesn’t know the word. It might be an insult. “I’m sorry. The clothes you gave... they didn’t fit me, I don’t think. They were… I would never have been able to train in them.”

 

“Don’t apologise, Adora. It’s a good sign, really.” Casta is sitting, legs folded beneath her, beneath a mat in the middle of the hall. Adora takes a seat on the mat opposite her, trying to imitate the strange position she’s sitting in, and – when she finds, irritatingly, that she _can’t_ – opts simply to cross her legs. Casta beams at her.

 

“How’d you figure that?” Adora asks, and Casta’s smile widens.

 

“It shows me that you’re practical, and prefer the simple things to the higher life. That’s always a good sign, when a princess starts her training. Perfuma and Natossa were a little like that, too.” Her smile fades, slightly, “I don’t see that often, anymore. It’s a welcome change, if I am honest. I have to coach _sorcerers_ every single day.”

 

“What’s them being sorcerers got to do with anything?"

 

Casta hums, considering. “Well, how do I put this? Magicians are essentially mortals, when you get down to the heart and soul of it.” She talks slower than usual, now, her voice like silk; lulling, as she traces soft patterns on the training mat. “We don’t have runestones. We aren’t exactly born with power – a lot of us don’t know what to do with it when it’s given to them. We are given the power to live for centuries, millennia, even, to gift our friends, and curse our enemies. We can see things past, worlds present, futures limitless.”

 

“I wasn’t _born_ with this, either, though,” Adora says, feeling like she should remind her, “and I’m mortal, as far as I know.”

 

“Yes, well. That’s what I mean. It’s a good sign. Nearly all sorcerers I know struggle not to lose themselves in the... pull of it. It’s a difficult desire to contain, for us.”

 

“How do you… _not_ lose yourself in it? How do you keep control?”

 

“Oh, well, I do knitting,” she says, as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world, “and, Micah worked in a blacksmith’s, when he was young. Doing things that a normal mortal would do—it makes us feel more tied to them; reminds us of who we are. My cousin, Beatrix, would spin light into colour, and use it to weave pictures – it was how she kept control. But, that obviously didn’t work out too well for her,” she gestures to the towering statue of the woman down the corridoor, blackened and scuffed with age and neglect.

 

“Wait, _Shadow Weaver_ was your _cousin?”_

 

This, Casta bristles at. _“Shadow Weaver_ is no blood of mine. Shadow Weaver _or Light Spinner._ _Beatrix,_ on the other hand…” she stares - face drawn - at the statue, wreathed in shadow and the spun black silk of crusting cobwebs, “Our family was destroyed by the Horde. Truly, utterly. I think it’s fair to say they took almost everything from us.” Adora feels the usual jagged spike of shame, but Casta doesn’t say it angrily. If anything, she seems more… _resigned._ Her gaze flicks to Micah’s marble body.

 

“Um, Casta?” she says, tentatively. Casta snaps to attention.

 

“Yes? Oh, I’m sorry, dear. I lost my train of thought. Right!” she rubs her hands together, “Today, Adora, we are going to be still.”

 

“We… we’re going to be what now.” Adora isn’t sure she heard her right.

 

Casta only smiles at her. “It’s the first stage of training in becoming a sorcerer.”

 

 _“Oh._ Well, _you know_ , I’m not _really_ becoming a sorcerer, I’m working on my She-Ra powers, so maybe we could… _I don’t know_ , skip this bit?”

 

“It’s important that every princess masters this part of the training. To still the body and mind. Even Angella trained in this, when she was younger.”

 

At this, Adora’s head jerks up, “You _trained_ Queen Angella?”

 

“Well, that’s not quite right. I was a _student,_ here, as well. We trained together. And then, a few hundred years later,” Casta smiles, conspiratorially, “she came to me for _extra lessons_. I was _that_ good. Or, er, alternatively, _she_ was that bad? She was always terrible at balancing herself. So, I did train her, yes. It was how she met my brother, Micah.”

  

It’s interesting. Adora presses for more. “She met your brother _here?_ Her… husband?” She’s only heard the word husband a handful of times, and she’s still always uncertain about whether or not she’s using it right. _I still don’t know what it means._

 

“Yes, but—you’re trying to distract me, Adora,” Casta smiles, teasingly, “I can tell. But, it won’t work, you know. Now, let us begin.” And she closes her eyes, and stills.

 

“What—like, just, begin? Nothing to—” Casta’s eyes don’t open; she doesn’t even _twitch_. “OK, cool, so I just… yeah.” Adora shuts her eyes, and tries to stay as still as humanly possible, muscles rigid with tension. It feels a little painful, but she does as Casta instructs without complaint.

 

Adora is no slacker. When she is given a task, she applies herself to it, entirely, completely. She can be still for a few minutes. It’s not like a task _so simplistic_ in design could ever, _possibly—_

 

Her knee hurts a little. It’s not bad, not like world-ending-agony — it’s probably just… the way she’s sitting. She doesn’t usually cross her legs. Is that normal? Maybe she should move it; she might get pins and needles if she stays like this too long. But she’s meant to be _still._ But maybe it will get _worse._ She waits for thirty seconds. It’s not gotten worse; it’s still manageable. But it still sort of hurts. How long are they doing this for, again?

 

Her hands feel strange. She wants to move them, a little, feels the sudden desire to fidget. It’s such a small thing, Casta can’t possibly mind. She cracks open an eye. Casta’s eyes are closed—she looks _so_ at peace. Maybe it’s the way she’s sitting. She wishes her legs could bend that way.

 

Her elbow itches. In fact, all of her itches. Maybe she has a rash. Maybe—

 

“I can _hear_ you thinking, Adora.” Casta’s eyes don’t open, “Still your mind. _Relax._ Pretend that you are trying to go to sleep.”

 

She really doesn’t want to do that.

 

 _“Trust me,_ Adora.”

 

So, she does.

 

*

 

_“Catra.”_

_It’s a week before her world stops spinning straight; before it turns in on itself; before she has to leave._

_They’ve just finished their morning simulation – this time, it’s that they’ve been taken captive by a princess and are stuck in the lair of her castle. Catra actually shows up, this time, but is distracted the whole way through, looks like she hadn’t slept a wink that night. She still has bedhead._

_“Catra,” she tries again. Still, nothing. Catra doesn’t look at her, obstinately, not slowing her furious pace to the locker rooms_

_“You look like shrapnel,” she tells her, and that – finally – gets her attention. She rips around to face her, glowering. Adora only laughs._

_“I’m sorry, I’m kidding. You just look—scary.” Catra leans back against her locker, still tight-lipped, but her eyebrows are raised and she can tell there’s the chance of amusement, there. “And tired.” Catra’s eyes shutter and drop, and she’s twisting away again._

_Ah. So, that’s it. “Did you…” she already knows the answer, “Do you want to talk about it?”_

_The response is the immediate; muscle memory of the mouth: “No.”_

*

 

The memory should end there.

 

*

_“You know, you can tell me anything, right?”_

 

*

 

Adora didn’t say that. _Why_ is she saying that?

 

*

 

 _It does the trick, though. Catra turns to her, sharply, looking struck. “I dreamt you left, again,” she says, quickly, biting it out like it burns her._

_Adora turns to face her, face carefully blank, as it always is when Catra tells her these things. There’s a darkness, settling into them, curling up the benches and lockers, shadows everywhere._

_Still, she can’t shout out, can’t do anything but shrug, her voice saying words that aren’t her own. “Well, you know I’m not going to do that.” Maybe it was that simple, then._

_Catra sighs. “I know. It just felt… I don’t know. Realer than the others. Closer.”_

 

*

 

Catra never told her that. Any of that. The memory should have ended on that last syllable - _no._ Catra never told her, in the real world. There wasn’t enough time. _This is wrong_ , something inside her screams, _this is wrong._

 

“Make it stop,” she says, trying to force open her lids, but the pull is too strong, “this didn’t happen. _It’s a lie._ Make it stop!”

 

*

_“Hey, you know, I’m not going anywhere.” Catra’s face is a little ashen, and she only nods, minutely._

_“Anyway, I was thinking—” But Catra does something she doesn’t expect. She closes the distance between them, wrapping her arms around her shoulders and burying her face in the crook of her neck._

_“You’re like, awesome. You know that, right? You’re like, the best friend anyone could have.” Adora blushes – it’s not real, Catra would never have said that – but she smiles, and maybe she can ignore the shadows for a few moments, maybe she can—_

_“Even if you did lie,” Catra says, into her neck, breath hot enough to burn, her hold on her becoming punishing, “even if you did leave me, leave your family,” shadows setting in, and she has to run,_ why can’t she run? _“and even if you did let your friend die.”_

_She hears Entrapta’s voice, what she never knew would be the last words she’d ever hear her speak, echoing around them as if caught inside vent after vent after vent, scrabbling for Adora; a dying sound:_

_“I just need a little more time!”_

 

*

 

She comes out of the trance, gasping, lungs feeling like they might burst, tongue like sandpaper in her mouth.  “What the  _space_ was that?” she croaks, winded.

 

Casta’s eyes blink open at her, owlishly. “What was what, dear?” Adora gets to her feet, too suddenly, feels her vision tunnel and blur. But she can’t sit here anymore, she can’t be here and just— “Enough for today, then,” Casta nods, as if she understands.

 

“Right,” Adora shakes her head, trying to clear it, “Casta, where are Glimmer and Bow?” She’s still shaking, still reeling from the vision, from the darkness settling in; still feels scattered.

 

Casta shrugs, smiles wickedly. “Those two? Oh, I’m sure they’re having a _grand time_ at court.”

 

Distantly, for whatever reason, Adora sorely doubts that.

 

*

 

“Court was _the worst,”_ Glimmer moans, nearly teleporting into Adora’s arms when she catches sight of her in the dining rooms. Instead, she shifts into the seat beside her, carrying a plate and ladling roast vegetables onto it. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

 

Adora smirks, eyebrows raised. “Really? Your Aunt Casta seems to think otherwise.”

 

Glimmer shakes her head, looking drained. “That’s because Aunt Casta _lives_ for drama. You know, I’m giving you the rundown, since you weren’t there to experience that _torture chamber_ for yourself. Magicians are so _dramatic;_ it’s like being in a soap opera in real time.”

 

Soap opera. Opera? _Soap._ “Sounds… clean?” she offers, and Glimmer laughs.

 

“You have no idea what a soap opera is, do you?” she says, smiling. Adora can only shrug as she reaches over to grab a bread roll.

 

“No, I just kind of live off of context clues and hope one day it all just… clicks.”

 

“Well, it was _horrible,_ anyway. How was training with Aunt Casta?”

 

“It was—“ she doesn’t know what it was. She’s struggling to find any words for it, when Bow materialises behind them, taking the seat next to Glimmer.

 

 “I suppose you’re telling her all about the Quentin-and-Lysander drama,” he says, dryly.

 

Adora stares at him. “The _what-now?”_

 

Bow’s face splits into a grin, before he rounds on Glimmer, looking scandalised. “Oh my god, you _haven’t_ told her? _OK, so—”_

 

“Hey!” Glimmer interjects, looking peeved, _“I’m_ giving her the rundown. I called dibs. _OK, so—”_

 

 _“Basically,”_ they both begin.

 

“Quentin is in love with Penelope—”

 

“—And, Penelope is in love with Lysander—”

 

Glimmer glares at him. _“—Obviously._ Look, if you’re not going to tell it right, then  _I’m_ telling it. So, Penelope is in love with Lysander, but her ex, Juniper? Well, she just got back from her trip to Salineas, and she told  _Penelope_ that _Lysander_ and _Quentin_ are actually in love with each other—“

 

“Which, they’re not, obviously? Like, have you _seen_ them? They can’t stand each other—”

 

Adora holds up her hands. “Wait, wait, wait, sorry—hold it.”

 

They both turn to her.

 

“They’re in— _what_ did you call it?” Glimmer and Bow blink at her, uncomprehending.

 

Bow seems to catch on first. “Oh. Juniper? She was in _Salineas._ You know, Mermista’s kingdom. We… saved it from the Horde, couple months back?” she’s still staring at him, so he laughs a little, looking incredulous, “I get we’ve got a busy schedule, but I find it hard to believe you can’t remember—”

 

Adora screws up her brow, shakes her head. “No, not _that. The other—_ that _word_ you kept using. Penelope with Lysander, and, um, Quentin with Penelope, was it?”

 

“What?” Glimmer asks, before it finally clicks. _“Love?”_

 

The  _way_ they’re staring at her now. She can’t tell why what she’s said is so wrong, but knows somehow she’s put her foot in her mouth, again. But, if she has to expose herself as a novice to whatever it is they’re talking about, now is probably the time.

 

“Yeah? _That."_

 

*

 

 _It’s a well-known fact that if you want to win against Adora in the training ring, you have to bring Catra into the fray._

 

 _Lonnie sometimes uses Catra as a hostage, when they play their sparring games as children, or for her for practice negotiations in their bunkers._

_“We want half your rations and an apple,” Lonnie speaks into one of the walkie-talkies they pinched from two Enforcers, standing guard. Their “base” is positioned at the other side of the barracks, and Catra is being held prisoner on one of the top bunks. Adora thinks she hears Catra grumble something, but its sandy-sounding static, from where she’s standing._

_“No way!” she cries, “half of our rations?” She motions to Kyle, standing next to her. “We’ll starve,” Lonnie’s sharp brown eyes appear over the railing of the bed, as she peers at them, coolly._

_“That’s_ your _problem. You guys can sort it out.”_

_“Tell your crew I’m done playing games. This our final offer: My apple, every day, for the next week, and you can take Kyle’s cookie on Tuesdays.”_

_Kyle splutters, “Hey!” just as Lonnie mutters:_

_“Done.”_

_It’s not fair-and-square, but the Horde have never fought that way, and they won’t start now._

_Octavia sometimes jokes that the princesses might steal Catra’s old baby monitor and play her wails at their bases to stop Future Force Captain Adora from firing at them. Catra always lobbies a great array of cusses at her, when she says that, and Octavia always swats at her, almost-playful but not quite, and sends them on their way._

_These are jokes, of course, and Adora can take them. Because they are right, in a way, and everyone who knows her can see it. But there is always a touch of danger, there, a warning, a be-careful-where-you-step._

_As if they are on thin ice, soon-to-be treading water._

 

*

 

“They _have_ love, in the Horde, _don’t they?”_ Adora doesn’t know how to respond to that.

 

“I don’t—” she blinks; feels a little sick, now. Clearing her throat, she tries: “Well, if you tell me what it is, maybe I can tell you.”

 

“Well, it’s…” Bow’s face looks pinched. Glimmer looks equally stumped. “It’s— OK. So, you know when your mum picks you up and, just… cuddles you?”

 

Adora stares at him, blankly. “No.”

 

He blanches. “Oh, _right,_ no. No. My bad. Sorry, that was… _Um.”_

 

Glimmer tries, this time. “You know, like, that feeling when you really want to spend time with someone, hold their hand, and just…?”

 

“Yeah, I guess,” Adora nods, maybe understanding a little. She’s had _friends,_ of course, “So, Penelope wants to hold Lysander’s hand, and Quentin wants to hold hers? Does she only have one hand, or something? What’s the problem?”

 

“No, well… _well,_ they don’t _just_ want to hold her hand, they want to… _you know,_ do all the other stuff.”

 

“What other stuff?” she snaps, feeling impatient now. Why were they talking in code?

 

“You know, a _relationship,”_ yet another word Adora doesn’t know, “It’s sort of like, I mean, it’s kind of like…” Glimmer thinks hard for a second, before shrugging, “oh, I dunno! I didn’t know I’d ever have to explain this to someone. It’s just something you sort of _know_ — _no, Adora,_ don’t look at me like that, I’m not—”

 

“It’s—fine.” She feels a little cold; gets to her feet. “I think I need to…” _to what?_ “get some rest. But, I’ll see you guys tomorrow, OK? Court sounds,” _nothing like the one I saw last night,_ “interesting.” And she spins on her heel, leaving without another word.

 

It’s an overreaction, _really._ It’s just, she’s so tired of being in the dark about everything.

 

Of being in the dark in general.

 

*

 

The Horde does have love, the concept. But it goes by another name – _devotion._ She realises it when she picks up a dictionary and reads the _actual_ definition of love: _a strong feeling of affection_ ; when she peruses through a thesaurus - synonyms, _yes:_ _devotion._

 

They had it in the Horde, _of course_ they did.

 

It was just strongly discouraged.

 

The list of reasons why was as long as it was obvious. Devotion to anything other than Lord Hordak may lead to a conflict of interest; the cause being weakened; faulty thinking in a combat setting; poor tactical decisions at the hands of generals and soldiers.

 

So, for the life of her, she doesn’t understand why it is encouraged, talked about like it’s _exciting,_ instead of a liability, in Mystacor. 

 

It makes no sense. _Just like their obsession with dreams in Bright Moon._

 

There’s a knock at her door. She answers, tentative, and it’s Glimmer outside, looking as uncertain as Adora feels. Adora opens her mouth to say something – anything; _apologise, really._ But Glimmer holds up a hand.

 

“I _know,_ just… here,” she says, before pulling out a dog-eared book and presenting it to her like a peace offering. Adora takes it out of her hands, eyes it warily. 

 

“Oh,” she studies the title, “ _The Princess and Pirate,_ seems… _inventive._ H.J Donnas – is that Seahawk’s penname?”

 

Glimmer rolls her eyes. “Consider it the beginning of your romance education,” _romance: a feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love,_ “I figured, you might need this for some reference. It’s, uh, really famous? I haven’t read all of it, but it’s like. A love story. Oh! Added bonus, _uh,_ some people think it was written about Mermista’s grandma and this pirate she had a fling with. Just in case you want an extra _ew_ factor.”

 

“Right,” _She’s trying,_ Adora realises, slowly, _and it’s lovely,_ “thank you.”

 

 


	4. CATRA II

**Chapter IV**

_**Cog in the Machine** _

 

She reaches the medbay just as the world starts to swim.

 

It’s been ten standard hours since her fight with Eljok, only five minutes of which were spent speaking with Hordak. He’d had nothing new to tell her; no updates on the situation. That didn’t mean that nothing was happening, of course, just that—

 

_Well._

 

He’d simply wanted to know how Entrapta’s research was going. She’d told him what little she understood of it, what little she knew for a fact he would like, the breakthroughs – there were _always_ breakthroughs, with Entrapta.

 

And then she was sent on her way.

 

Perhaps he'd thought she would seek medical attention, after leaving him. She didn’t. She should have come here earlier than this, she knows, but she had wanted it to be alright; to wear the badges of the duel the way she’d seen the other, older Force Captains do.

  

*

_“There, look, that’s him!” Adora hisses, pointing frantically, as they peer over the guardrail of the balcony._

_Down below, a paralysing forty-foot drop, the Fright Zone’s tangling web of corridors are in tumult – it’s early morning rush hour, and everyone is dashing to their stations._

_Still, however, the crowds part; people move aside; rush to accommodate the huge man, chest almost the width of the main corridor that he strides through._

_“The scary one with the black eye?” Rogelio asks, uncertainly. Adora nods, turns back to stare at the hulking mass of lilac skin and scars, looking starry-eyed._

_“Force Captain Luc,” she whispers, awed, “he’s so cool, you won’t believe what the cadets told me about him.” The cadets – Adora’s new best friends, who tell her all the latest gossip. Catra rolls her eyes, and tries not to look too interested, even as her ears perk up a little._

_They’re fourteen standard years old, and have recently been allowed to have limited interaction with the other year groups of recruits. Integration, in preparation for their assignments, in four years’ time._

_“What did they say?” Lonnie asks, as the man marches onwards, eyes fixed ahead and back ramrod-straight. Adora rushes to explain:_

_“Some guy had been stirring up trouble for him in court all week – calling him a no-good; a princess-lover behind his back. The usual stuff,” Lonnie, Kyle and Rogelio nod confidently, as if they know, too, what the ‘usual stuff’ is._

_“But—yesterday, he did something bad. Like, really bad. He called him a coward, and challenged him to a duel, in front of everyone.” The three hiss out, lean in closer. Catra has some shred of dignity, and doesn’t – ignoring the way Adora’s eyes flicker to her as she speaks._

_“So, it was up to Force Captain Luc to choose their mode of combat. Hordak asked him to pick his weapon of choice, and he said—“ she grins, leans in, voice straining as she tries to make it as deep as possible, “'Our fists, Archibald,’ And then—once they’re in the ring – he just—knocks him out. In one, single blow.” Lonnie whistles, and Rogelio makes an impressed sound._

_“So, what’s with the black eye?” Catra asks, breaking the stunned silence, finally._

_“Huh?” Adora twists around to face her._

_Catra rolls her eyes. “Uh, the black eye? If he took him out in one hit, how come he has a black eye?”_

_Adora falters. “I don’t know. That could have been anything, I guess—“_

_“Are cadets even allowed in court?” she carries on, poking and prodding at the story._

_“I mean, I guess they could have heard it from someone—“_

_“Or, you know,_ lied.” _The way Adora’s staring at her, now. Catra looks away._

_“Can’t you just enjoy the story?” Lonnie snaps, over her shoulder. “The guy’s cool. He’s got rippling purple muscles, and scars, and he’s a freaking Force Captain. It doesn’t have to be any deeper than it sounds.”_

_Catra scowls, turns to walk away. “Yeah, well. Whatever.”_

 

*

 

The medic on duty gives her a quick full-body scan. She shuts her eyes tight, feeling sick, until she remembers what plays beneath her lids when she closes them, and they fly open— just in time for her to be momentarily blinded by the ray of red light coming from the scanner.

 

She hisses out in pain, twists her head to look away; down at her fingers, as the webbed lasers of light glance over them, gridding her skin in red. The medic ignores her for the process, opting instead to look at the holoscreen, displaying her quickly-forming charts and data logs.

 

“Nothing broken,” she tells her, and _she has a really weird voice, what’s up with that?_ “and no internal bleeding – which is good. You’ve got— a slight concussion, bruised ribs and a few teeth that have been— loosened. But, nothing that can’t be solved by a bit of— quick surgery.”

 

Catra rolls her shoulders, stretching out her aching limbs. “Right. Do you have to sedate me?”

 

“Yeah, that’s the standard procedure,” the woman says, simply, but there’s something a little _off_ about the way she says it. Catra can’t put her finger on it; shakes her head.

 

“It’s OK, I can take a little pain, you don’t  _need_ to sedate me—”

 

“Yeah, that’s the standard procedure,” she repeats. Catra pauses, staring at her. Her voice still sounds a little weird.  _Automated,_ she realizes. The woman blinks at her, and her eyes are a little too lightless; there’s a lack of something there. _Oh._

 

“Sedate me,” she tests, almost amused now.

 

“Yeah, that’s the standard procedure,” she says, for the third time. _Right._

 

Catra leans back against the cool metal of the medbay’s wall. “They’re making you guys way too realistic, these days.” Stretching out a steady hand, she flicks the woman’s forehead, and an echoing _ping_ bounces through the painted steal of her skin. “I almost didn’t realize you were _a bot.”_

 

The bot pauses, seems to think it over. “I almost didn’t realize you were a bastard.”

 

Catra jerks back, alarmed, before she realises the response was pre-set. She snarls, “Hey! Who programed you to say that?”

 

“Entrapta says hello,” comes the automated response. Catra rubs at her temples.

 

 _“Of course_ she does. Fine, look, sedate me—”

 

“Yeah, that’s the standard procedure—”

 

 _“Just,_ get this over with.” The medbot tilts her— _its_ head, before the skin of its mechanised hand opens up, producing a little red pill, while her other hand offers up a cup of water. Catra takes it, knocks back the water, and, in what seems like a few short moments, the world starts to blur and bleed together. She scrambles to seat herself on the surgical table. The glaring, fluorescent lights of the medbay are giving her a killer headache. She winces out - a strange, distant sound. 

 

As if from a million miles away, from beneath some great body of water, the medbot says: “The procedure is easier to perform if the patient closes their eyes." She does it, instinctively, wanting to shut out the spinning world, but then— 

 

*

 

 _“Catra.”_

*

 

She opens them, again, her next words slurred and slow, “Right, right. But, you can still do it, even if I don’t?”

 

The medbot tilts its head, repeats: “The procedure is easier to perform if the patient closes their eyes.”

 

 _“Fine.”_ So, she closes them tight; lets the world drip to black; lets the shadows eat at the light.

 

*

 

_“Catra,” Adora calls out, again, boots clanging against the iron floors as she hurries to catch up with her. Catra doesn’t turn._

 

 _It had felt so real – the curdling smoke, the torn-apart world, the_ _—_

 

_"You look like shrapnel,” Adora says, as she slows to a stop a foot behind her. She’s trying to get a rise out of her, Catra knows, but her blood still spikes the same and she wheels around, staring daggers. Adora’s eyes only flash, laughingly. “I’m sorry, I’m kidding. You just look—scary.”_

_She feels the muscles in her cheeks give, just slightly; twitch. She wants to smile, so badly, now. Adora’s always brought that out in her._

_“And tired.”_

_Her stomach drops, and it’s there again. The reason she’d woken gasping, found her way to the foot of Adora’s bed; hadn’t slept a wink after that._

_She feels Adora’s eyes burning a hole in her back, and she just knows Adora’s got it figured out, now. “Did you… Do you want to talk about it?”_

_Of course she doesn’t. “No.” Of course she does._

_Catra hears her shift, slightly. There’s a long pause, before Adora sighs. “I need to get going, Shadow Weaver wants to speak to me,” she says, into the stale air. Catra is silent; won’t look at her. She hears the shuffling of boots; the shutting of a locker, and then a door, and knows that she’s gone._

 

_She sits there, long after Adora has left, alone again._

 

_It seems like forever. But, eventually, her world mercifully bleeds back to black._

 

*

 

When she comes to, it’s to bright light and the smell of disinfectant. She groans, and thinks - distantly - that she hears the medbot typing something onto the holoscreen. 

 

“Everything go alright?” she asks, groggily.

 

“The surgery was a— success. Your wounds have been— healed.” it replies, in its strange, mechanical voice. 

 

“Right. How long’s it been?” she stretches, leans up, with difficulty, still trying to wipe the haze of drug-induced sleep from her mind. The bot responds:

 

“Fourteen standard hours.”

 

 _Fourteen hours_. That means it’s 2AM. The dream hadn’t lasted very long, she knows - the majority of the time had passed in a muggy haze of blurred thought; blackness and twinges of pain. She nods, takes the water the medbot offers her, drinks long and slow. Her throat feels like it’s been rubbed down with sandpaper.

 

“Am I allowed to leave, now?” she asks, finally, still resting on the iron surgical slab. Her limbs feel slack, disconnected from her aching body. Again, she stretches them, tries to kickstart them into life.

 

“Yes,” the bot replies, turning back to its work.

 

“Thanks,” she says, even though it means nothing – bots won’t recognise the word; nobody says it to them.

 

*

 

The halls of the Fright Zone are deserted. It’s passed curfew, so the lights have been dimmed down to conserve power, and everywhere she goes she passes through shadows that threaten to swallow her. It’s too late even for a court meeting, and she should really return to her rooms, but—she can’t. Not now. 

 

Instead, she walks. For how long, she doesn’t know. The haze of drugs are wearing off, now, and the world is sharpening down. Eventually, her feet come to a stop outside the double doors of the twentieth floor's training rooms. It’s a world of dark, inside; nothing like the glaring green-and-go; red-and-run of the _recruit_ training rooms. 

 

They should be empty, at this hour, when she enters them.

 

They’re not, but they should be. Catra freezes when she sees her, before forcing herself into calm; calls out from the double-doorway:

 

“Lonnie. Heard about your promotion. Congrats.”

 

Lonnie is just picking a training staff from the rack set by the wall. She stiffens, at the sound of Catra’s voice, but doesn’t turn to face the source of sound.

 

“Catra. Heard about you getting your face beat. Congrats.” She selects a staff, tests the feel of it; weighs it in her hands before slicing it downwards into open air.

 

“I _won,_ though,” Catra says, a touch too petulantly, stepping further inside. 

 

She can _feel_ Lonnie roll her eyes. “So I heard. Close one, though. Force Captain Eljok, wasn’t it?” There’s an edge to this. Catra would be blind not to see it. Her claws extend a little, testing, as her muscles tense with ice. She forces herself to be easy.

 

“Yeah, that’s right. What about it?” Lonnie just nods, eyes narrowing ever so slightly.

 

“Just figured. He’s been trying to get at you for a while.” The way she says it, it doesn’t sound like she blames him.

 

Catra walks forward, further into the training rooms, onto the rows of training mats, comes to a stop by Lonnie’s side. Lonnie twists around to look at her, bladed guard not gone from her eyes. Catra holds her gaze as she, too, takes a staff from the rack, tests and twists it in the palm of her hand. The pause that follows is as tense as it has ever been.

 

*

 

_They’re ten standard years old and Lonnie pushes her into a rack of training staffs when Catra scratches her._

 

_They’re fourteen and Lonnie knocks her legs from under her; stops her from winning a simulation._

 

_They’re fifteen and Adora takes Lonnie to eat with the cadets at lunchtime, the day after Catra had told them their stories were all shrapnel and bolts._

 

_They’re seven and Lonnie smiles at her, waves just a little in the first ever hello, and the last. Catra scowls, turns away, and grips Adora’s hand tighter._

 

_They’re eight and Lonnie tells Shadow Weaver that Catra wakes up screaming._

 

*

 

They don’t speak. They don’t need to.

 

Catra shrugs off her jacket in one motion. In the next, their staffs meet in the middle of them.  

 

“Glad to see we’re on the same page,” Catra smiles.

 

Lonnie makes a sound like a strangled snarl, presses forward, all power and push, and it takes sinking her heel and claws into the training mat not to be forced back a step. The fabric tears beneath the strain of her claws, ripping sound too-loud in the empty metal chambers, and Lonnie smirks.

 

Catra leaps back, sends her stick into an arc that carves up the space where Lonnie’s stomach was moments before. She presses onwards as their staffs meet again, smiling, “You know, Lonnie,” she says, conversationally, “I’m starting to get the feeling you don’t like me all that much.”

 

Lonnie snorts as they spiral closer. “Oh, well, you know. Horde Recruit 101. _Trust your gut,”_ A punishing hit to her mouth sends Catra spinning backwards.

 

She hisses, swiping at her bottom lip. Her fingers come back, tracked with red. She glares at her.

 

 _“Space out,_ Lonnie,” she snarls, momentarily reverting back to a ten-year-old, “I _just_ had my face fixed. Can you try not to mess it up again?”

 

Lonnie doesn’t lower her staff. If anything, her grip on it seems to increase tenfold, but her face remains impassive. “Again, Horde Recruit 101. Exploit your opponent’s weaknesses. Can’t blame me for doing my duty.”

 

Catra sighs, adjusts her stance and straightens again. _“Fine,”_ she snaps, “You want at it? Come on, then.” Lonnie’s ready before she speaks the words.

 

This time, Catra throws herself into it, fully.

 

It’s all quick, sharp blows, never quite landing a hit on each other. Lonnie knocks her back, forcing her to defend as she sends blows barrelling towards her face. It’s easy to defend until it isn’t. The final one – the one that catches her – sends the end of the staff stabbing into the bridge of her nose with a sharp _crack._

 

*

 

_“Does it look broken to you?"_

 

*

 

She screeches out in pain, before aiming a sharp kick to her solar plexus. Lonnie bowls over, gasping.

 

 _“Shrapnel._ Didn’t realise we were allowed to do _that,”_ she wheezes, straightening. Catra shrugs, clutching at her nose, feels the red wet of her fingers.

 

*

 

_“I'm bleeding!”_

 

 

*

 

“Didn’t realise we were busting each other’s lips and noses, either.” Lonnie laughs – and it’s a cold, brittle sort of sound. 

 

“You never fight fair, huh? Says something that you always gotta fight dirty to win,” Catra rolls her eyes, but Lonnie presses, “No, _really._ Always acting like some dumb kid when Adora was around, trying to get her to protect you, then – soon as she leaves – you’re taking her promotion and worming your way up,” she looks at her, then, with open disgust, _“showing your true colours.”_

 

“That’s not what happened,” she snarls, between her fingers. Because it isn’t. _She doesn’t know anything._

 

“It isn’t, huh? Looks like it, from where I’m standing.” She moves forward, dropping her staff to the floor with a sharp, ringing clatter. “Say, did you ever really give a damn about her? About _any of us?”_  

 

Her steps quicken, and Catra matches the motion, blood boiling, before the icy calm returns to her veins – the self-assurance. Faces inches apart, she schools her own.

 

“You know what? I don’t have to explain myself to you.” _I did what I had to. I did what any of us would have done. I did everything Adora should have._ And she’s turning on her heel, still clutching at her nose and storming back to the medbay.

 

*

 

The same medbot is still on duty, when she arrives. It stares at her, impassively, and – yeah, it literally _can’t feel_ – but she still flushes, feels the burn of judgement in its empty eyes.

 

Catra roils under the look. “I _know,_ OK? Just—give me a cold pack.”

 

The medbot says nothing, only hands one to her with its cold, steel hands.

 

“Thanks,” Catra mutters, voice feeling hoarse.

 

*

 

It’s 5AM when she finally reaches the lab. She takes the long route; the back route - _this_  is not the state of post-duel glory she wants to be seen in.

 

“Don’t ask,” she tells Entrapta, as soon as she walks in. The cold pack is pressed firmly against the swelling bruise bridging her nose, and she must look terrible, with her bloody nose and bleeding lip.

 

“Wasn’t going to,” Entrapta calls, the upper half of her body buried in a cylindrical bot, “wait, ask about what?”

 

“Nothing,” Catra leans her head forward, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Just, keep doing what you’re doing. I’m stealing your wheelie chair, by the way.” 

 

“Sure thing, could’ya… hang on, _ugh,”_ she pulls out of the bot, peeling off her welding helmet. “Sorry, could’ya pass the— _jeez,_ what happened to your face?”

 

Catra growls, warningly. “What did I _just_ say?”

 

Entrapta nods, distractedly, “Right, right. Could’ya pass the screwdriver? Can’t quite reach it.” One of her arms is now elbow-deep inside the bot’s inner workings, the open trap of the cylinder spilling out wires and sinews.

 

Catra rolls her eyes – hands it to her.

 

“And _stop messing_ with the medbots,” she says, after a moment. Entrapta pauses, hums in response, and doesn’t even try and deny it. Catra watches her as she tinkers.

 

She looks a little less insane, nowadays. Older, too. The weird, pig-tail thing she had going on has been replaced by two braids, that stick to her scalp and run down the line of her back.  _It looks like two scorpions’ tails,_ Scorpia had told her, when she’d finished them. Entrapta hasn’t changed her hair since. She’s wearing Horde uniform, now, too.

 

 _She looks like one of us,_ Catra thinks, and the thought almost makes her smile.

 

“What are you doing now?” she asks, after a minute, curiosity getting the better of her.

 

“Just a little side-project,” she says, blithely, “trying to see if I can rewire this _beauty._ I got my hands on a chemical store of iridium, which I might be able to connect to the automatic opening of the bot, which _in turn_ might mean that – once it makes contact with the oxygen in Etheria’s atmosphere, leading to instant combustion and—“

 

Catra pinches the bridge of her nose, then winces out in the pain of it.  _Shouldn’t have asked._ “Space. _English,_ _please,_ Entrapta.”

 

Entrapta pauses, thinks hard for a second, as if she’s not fluent in it. “I might be able to get the  _ro_ _bot_ to  _breathe fire_ ,” she says, slowly.

 

 _“Oh.”_ _This,_ Catra can get on board with.  _“That’s cool.”_

 

 _“I_ _know, right?”_ Entrapta squeals. It’s just then that Scorpia enters, carting in a box of scrap metal.

 

“Hey, Entrapta, you will  _not_ believe what Peekablue—“ she stops as she sets down the box and takes in the sight of Catra. “Jeez, what happened to your face?”

 

“That’s what I said!” Entrapta shouts, over the roar of her welding torch.

 

“Did'ya get into another fight with Eljok?” Scorpia asks, voice all concern. Catra grits her teeth.

 

 _“No.”_ She feels like a little kid when Scorpia looks at her like that. It doesn’t help that she’s the youngest of the three of them. Scorpia’s papers say she’s twenty-four standard years old. And Entrapta…

 

*

 

_It comes as a surprise to her. They are filling out her initiation forms, the ones that would get her registered as a certified Technician and Engineer. “And, your age?” she asks._

_“Twenty-five standard years.” Catra nearly spits._

_“What? You look—“_

_“Older?”_ _Entrapta supplies, and Catra snorts._

_“—Fourteen, I was going to say.” If she’s honest, she’s always sort of imagined Entrapta as some ageless, chaotic being. It’s difficult to make out much of her face, what with the purple fringe and bangs, and her wearing those ridiculous goggles half the time._

_“Maybe it’s the pigtails,” Entrapta says, absently._

_Catra laughs. "It’s definitely the pigtails.”_

*

“It wasn’t Eljok, alright?” she sighs. “Just, drop it.”

 

“Alright,” she holds up her hands in surrender, “I was just worried about you, is all. You kinda looked like you were gonna pass out half the time you guys were fighting.”

 

“Must have been the lighting,” she snarks. Behind her, Entrapta makes a little  _ah_ sound as she snaps two wire ligaments together, and a loud _bang_ rips through the air. Catra flinches, edges back another foot.  “Try not to blow up the lab,” she tells her, testily.

 

Entrapta doesn’t seem too concerned. “Eh, minimal chance of that happening. This one’s just a prototype, anyway.”

 

“Oh, is this the one you pinched a chemical store of iridium for?” Scorpia asks, pulling up a chair and scooting closer. Entrapta flashes her a secretive smile and nods, “This is going to be so cool. We’re gonna—what did ya call it? ' _Weaponize combustion on a global scale'?”_ She grins, opens her mouth as if to say more, but Catra cuts in:

 

 _“Space,_ you got _Scorpia_ to  _science-speak? What kind of shrapnel—“_

 

“Catra, please don’t swear in my lab,” Entrapta turns back to her work, prodding at a loose screw with her wrench.

 

Catra sinks back in the wheelie chair, spins around a couple times, sighs. “Right, right. Sorry."

 

“I made a sign, ya’know,” Her braids gesture to a scrap of paper stuck to the wall, lined with crawling cursive:  _NO SWEARING IN THE LAB._ Beneath it, Scorpia had drawn a particularly crude stick-man version of Catra, mouthing obscenities, and a large red cross down the middle of it.

 

It had been their _art project,_ while Catra had been on her mission, destroying the First Ones citadel.

 

“How’s the _actual_ research coming along, anyway?” _The one Hordak is apparently riding on; the one which could mean everything. You know,_ that  _research._

 

“Oh, splendidly!” Entrapta says that every time. She spins away to face the lab screens. “I’ve been looking into things, and—alright, let me just… hook this up— _there.”_ The web of computer screens ping on; light up. “OK, so. We have one runstone, right now, the Black Garnet. There are others, scattered in the different kingdoms, but they’re heavily fortified. You, er, _follow?”_ She turns to Catra, gaze questioning: _Do I need to tone it down a little, to your level? Do I have to explain what a kingdom is?_

 

“We follow, obviously.” Entrapta sighs in relief.

 

“OK, _good._ So, all of the runestones are really _powerful_ …” she checks again to see if Catra is following. Catra nods tersely, “But the strength of the runesone seems to depend on its attachment to its owner.” The computer screen is alight with ancient texts; unintelligible stuff, to Catra, but she gets the gist.

 

“The Black Garnet never was… connected, to anyone or anything, so it’s one of the weaker runestones. The Moonstone, in Moon Bright, is connected to the whole kingdom, and keeps Queen Angella and her daughter alive, so it’s… stronger. Same with the opal in She-Ra’s Sword of Protection.”

 

Catra is getting a little impatient. Entrapta has been over _this part_ a hundred times. “Right, right. _Interesting._ But, how does that help us?”

 

“Well. There _is_ one runestone that isn’t protected. It was hidden, vaulted away, but it’s unguarded, as far as we know. It’s down, down…” a map appears on the screen, now, and Entrapta’s scrolling, quickly, “down… _here._ In the far south, past the Whispering Woods and on into the desert. In Machairodus. And, trust me when I say, we are _going_ to want to get our hands on this.” She rubs her hands together, grinning.

 

“Hold on. It’s in… where-now?” she strokes her temples, soothingly.

 

“Machairodus,” Entrapta says again, like it will help, somehow, if Catra hears a word she doesn’t know _twice._

 

“And… this is a what? A mountain range? A valley? A river?”

 

“It’s a city.”

 

Catra exhales sharply; needs a moment to digest this. “So, your _new_ plan,” she says, slowly, “is to find a runestone hidden _somewhere_ , in - not a forest, or a town, or a citadel - but an _entire freaking city?”_

 

“That was the plan, affirmative,” Entrapta says, simply, before seeing the look on Catra’s face, “what, you don’t like it?”

 

 _“Like_ it?” Catra is nearly beside herself now, “Entrapta, it’s _impossible._ What do you expect the Horde to do? Knock on every home and ask to barge inside and raid their drawers?”

 

“That,” Scorpia speaks up, “won’t be a problem.”

 

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

 

“Catra, everyone in Machairodus is dead.” She says it a little like it’s nothing. Maybe it is.

 

Catra pauses at this. “What? Did they… die out, or something?”

 

Entrapta _tsks_ , still fiddling with the bolt on the belly of a twitching bot.  “That would imply it was an accident. The city was burnt to the ground, about twenty years ago.” Her voice doesn’t change in inflection, either.

 

It’s rare to see either of them actually uncomfortable about something. Scorpia is essentially immune to social cues. _Entrapta_ being uncomfortable about _anything_ is essentially impossible – Entrapta doesn’t _do_ uncomfortable. She isn’t wired that way.

 

But, still. _This_ level of apathy is a bit extreme. Catra shakes her head, tries to clear it.

 

“Orders of Hordak, then,” she guesses. He came to power, around that time. _It seems like something he would do._

 

Scorpia nods. “Yeah. First order of business, when he took control. They’d refused to surrender. It was only natural; had to set an example for the other cities and kingdoms. Obviously, we weren’t going to kill perfectly good recruits. The children were taken; the rest were dispatched.” _Dispatched._

 

“What about the queen?”

 

“Who? Felicis? She kinda snapped,” Scorpia shrugs, “I always forget you never attended Force Captain Orientation. I’m pretty sure this was in one of the pamphlets.”

 

“Didn’t she have a kid? I thought there were meant to be fourteen princesses?”

 

And then it hits her. Hordak’s speech, from last night.

 

_“Within the Princess Alliance, only seven remain of the fourteen. The others are lost to them – either through joining our cause or perishing at the hands of our mighty Horde.”_

 

She’d thought he was being dramatic; trying to dig up morale and pump it into the court officials and Force Captains. She leans back, feeling the spidery sense of _something_ knotting in her stomach. 

 

“Oh,” she swallows, “so, they’re dead, basically.”

 

Scorpia nods. “Yeah, but—Hordak didn’t do that, Catra. He was gonna offer the queen mercy, really. But she went crazy; threw herself off the cliffs in her city, with her baby.”

 

There is a ringing silence. Then, finally, _“What? With_ the baby? Who does that?” She can feel anger rising up, bubbling up in the base of her throat.

 

“Trust me, people _hate_ her for it. Even some of the Rebellion. It was… it was back when the Horde were still… pretty weak, really. King Micah had just died; Hordak had just taken control. He changed things, around here, for the better. Getting rid of Machairodus was just part of that.” It’s entirely in character, it makes complete sense, is exactly what she’d expect from Hordak.

 

She ignores the way that makes her feel, “Of course, but—still, Entrapta. If this runestone is hidden, how do you expect us to find it? Do you want me to set up teams of Horde Enforcers to sift through the city's ashes, or something?”

 

Entrapta shakes her head. “If we can find a way to get the runestone, there’s no saying what we can do. It was connected to every single life within the city, and all the lives before it. The energy levels of that thing must be off the charts.”

 

“That _still_ doesn’t tell me how you plan on finding this… what type of stone is it, anyway?”

 

“It’s an amber.”

 

She doesn’t even know what that _looks like._ “Right, yeah. But, how are we going to find this… amber?”

 

Entrapta shifts, looking troubled. “I don’t—there _might_ be a way, if we’re smart about it. It’s still a work in progress.”

 

Catra sighs, exhausted and exasperated. “So, let’s _work;_ _progress_. And no— _no_ building fire-breathing bots until we have a solution.” _As cool as that would be,_ she wants to add but doesn’t.

Entrapta hesitates, looking disappointed, before nodding. “Yeah. You’re right.” The limp bot in her hands finally gives a little _twitch,_ and Entrapta squeaks in surprise, as Scorpia throws back her head and laughs.

 

Sighing, Catra turns and leaves them to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you all are having a lovely christmas xx


	5. ADORA III

 

**Chapter V _  
Mystacor: Intermediary_**

 

In the month that follows, many things change.

 

It seems like the nature of Mystacor – for things to be in motion, constantly. There is none of the stagnancy and waiting, waiting,  _waiting_ of Bright Moon.

 

Something is always happening. It’s just never anything important.

 

Still, Adora feels it – a shift; a ripple; a warning.  _Something is coming,_ says the pinpricks spidering down her spine.  _Something is coming,_ in the shaded visions and distorted memories of times gone and going.  _Something is coming,_ in slices of refracted images – dreams of her home ripped away from home, the Fright Zone, draped in shadows.

 

_Something is coming._

*

 

“I still don’t buy it,” Bow says, on the second Tuesday, “Quentin and Lysander couldn’t stand each other, like, a  _week_ ago. And now they’re—what?  _Dating?”_

 

They’re opposite each other in one of the training rings. Behind them, Casta’s students are settled in a circle, meditating. Or,  _so they say_ , but Adora has caught at least five of them staring at her - trying to catch a glimpse of  _She-Ra,_ no doubt.

 

Adora nods, distractedly, “Right, yeah, it’s—watch your left side— it’s  _weird,_ sure.”

 

“Right, thanks,” he brings his arm up back into correct position, “I’m just saying—“ Adora lets a fist fly towards his face; he knocks it away, “it’s a little—“ she grips him in a lock; he jabs a knee at her torso, but she’s slamming him away before he can make impact.

 

He wobbles, knee still in the air -  _squawks_ as he tumbles towards the floor. She grabs hold of his forearm, drags him back into standing position. More than a few of the sorcerers have their eyes wide open to stare at them, now. She ignores them.

 

“It’s a little…?” she prompts.

 

He seems distracted, now. His eyes keep flicking to a boy in the meditation circle, who’s watching Bow with wide, starry eyes. “Huh? Oh… well,  _if—_ if you hated someone  _that much_ before, I don’t see how a relationship like that can last.”

 

Adora shrugs; relaxes her stance. “Maybe they didn’t really hate each other. Maybe…” She doesn’t know.

 

Bow shakes his head, as if trying to clear it; brings his arms back up. “Should we go again?” he asks, looking flustered. The boy is still staring.  _Oh._

 

Adora nods. “Alright, again.”

 

She’s not completely blind. She lets him win, just this once.

 

*

 

She reads the book in two weeks.

 

It’s thick; around the width of her hand, and she’d like to say that that was mostly because of the binding or text size, but it wasn’t, really.

 

It’s odd, at first.

 

It’s _odd;_ confusing; uncharted territory in a million ways. It strikes her, not for the first time, that she’s been dropped in the middle of a world – cultures, histories, outlooks – that she knows nothing of. There’s just  _so much._

 

She wants to grapple with it, she wants to  _understand,_ so – in between the hours spent sparring and  _being still_ – she snatches at the unfamiliar words, spilled carelessly on nearly every page; at the unknown ideas and famous places and faces.

 

The pages hold another world inside them, hidden beneath leather binding. She tries to research every word –  _inequity; opera; relationship; croissant; squirrel; ghost_ – with painstaking precision - tries to award them the same value she gives to combat moves and military tactics.

 

She can’t quite do that, but she tries to. Flashcards and children’s books and quizzing herself on sleepy nights. 

 

She learns things that make her  _cringe_ with late-set embarrassment. She learns that it’s considered rude to eat fish in front of a citizen of Salineas, which would explain why Mermista glared at her when Adora offered her a salmon cake on her last visit to Bright Moon.

 

And, she learns about love.

 

It’s difficult; viscerally uncomfortable, at some points.

 

Softness was a stolen thing in the Horde, snatched in the grip of a hand in hers, or whispering in the night, or the occasional light kiss planted on a cheek after training. It wasn’t a _secret;_ only it was; only a secret is a spoken thing.

 

It pulls at her chest to read about it, now, like it isn’t a  _wrongness._ Like it isn’t a gentle sort of fear; something to be pressed into the back of her mind; a coldness that never leaves it.

 

And, maybe it becomes easier, at one point or another, because she winds up  _wanting_ the characters to fall, to love; to be stupid and dive right in. She doesn’t know.

 

The fight scenes are easier to understand; it’s a Horde soldier’s second nature to fight, unquestioning. She knows fighting. She  _likes_ fighting, and, a lot of the time it’s easier than thinking. Simple.

 

She learns about family, too.

 

 _You choose it,_ a character says,  _it isn’t made of blood._

 

And it’s a relief, because she  _wants_ it.

 

Her throat constricts when she reads about it – about mothers holding their babies and fathers playing with their children; people fighting – but still,  _moving on, staying together,_ in the end. Because of that other thing – devotion;  _love._

 

It’s bad, really, but she can’t help but feel a twinge, a small stab of jealousy, when she sees Glimmer with Angella, or Casta; Bow with his dads. Because that kind of  _love_ – without the crippling expectation; without the fear of falling – is alien to her.

 

Shadow Weaver is probably the closest she’ll ever come to having a mother, and she was always made of—  _talons ghosting her jaw as— Again, one more time, Adora_.

 

Maybe Lonnie and Rogelio were like a big brother and sister, looking out for her because they were a month or two older; or Kyle like one of those kind-of annoying little brothers she’s read about in stories.

 

If she thinks about it like that, then maybe the loyalty in families makes some kind of sense. Things ran deep in the rows of bunkbeds.

 

It’s all hypothetical; all trying to make sense of things, trying to slot pieces of old and new together. The result is clumsy, patchwork – stitching on new fabric to ragged clothes; silk to soldier’s uniform. The Horde isn’t Bright Moon. It isn’t Mystacor. Family is a thing to forget, an outdated ideal; devotion is lack of control, and control is the thing everyone seeks.

 

Still.

 

“I like it,” she tells Glimmer, when she’s finally finished it, “It’s  _new,_ but— I like it, really. Thank you.” She means it.

 

Glimmer tries – unsuccessfully – to hide her smile in the crook of her elbow. They’re seated by the beach, laying back on lilac sands, listening to the calming lull of waves.

 

“Did you—do you want another?” Adora doesn’t know the answer; thinks about it, and Glimmer presses on, mistaking her silence for reluctance, “Obviously, we— you don’t  _have_ to. It’s just—if it helps you  _get_ this stuff. I don’t want you to think we’re—you know, that we don’t care. ‘Cause,  _we do,_ you know,  _obviously.”_

 

Adora smiles. “Obviously.” _It’s a nice word, when it’s used like that._

 

Glimmer grins, elbows her, playfully. “Yeah.  _Obviously.”_

 

“I’d like that, actually.” It’s the truth; she’s pretty sure it’s the truth.

 

“Cool,” Glimmer’s smile widens; she lies back down in the sands, “we could make a day out of it. Mystacor’s got a massive library. Oh, they just got this _super_ weird sci-fi series I was planning on picking up. We could—we could see what you liked. Maybe you’d—  _well,_ we’ll see.”

 

“Cool,” Adora echoes, as she sits back, says it again: “Cool,” as the waves of clouds lap at her feet. Finally: “Hey, Glimmer?”

 

“Mhm?” Her eyes are shut, now.

 

“What’s a library?”

 

*

 

The weeks pass too quickly.

 

In the first of them, Adora is  _still_ with Casta for five minutes a day, every day. Or, more accurately, she’s  _successfully still_ with Casta for five minutes a day, every day. She is _meant_ to be _still_ for an hour.

 

“We’ll build it up,” Casta smiles, on the second day, “but an hour a day is a good starting point.” Adora can’t hide the way her face falls. 

 

It’s, simply put, impossible. There’s no getting around it. Her hands have a mind of their own, drum beats on her knees to the sound of silence. It has never been more tempting to move than when someone explicitly tells her not to.

 

“You’d think,” Casta says, wryly, after one dragging hour is finally up, “that you’d have a lot less steam to burn off, given all the training you do.”

 

“It’s…  _uncomfortable,”_ Adora mutters, “I feel— it’s like I’m losing control, when I’m  _still.”_  It’s the truth, and it’s a lie by omission.

 

She doesn’t want to lose herself again. She doesn’t want to see the shadows that creep in at night times; the ones of her old friends that she lost, and the new friend that she lost, and all the things that she might lose.

 

Casta only shakes her head, brows knitting. “Meditation is expressly  _for_ control, Adora.”

 

It doesn’t feel that way.

 

*

 

 

On the second week, she tries a new tactic. She tenses everything –  _everything_ – and tries to stick out the hour in painful silence. Finally, on the third day, Casta sighs.

 

“I should tell you,” she begins, heavily, “High class sorcerers can— _catch_ thoughts, unintentionally, if they’re… _articulated_ clearly enough.”

 

Adora cracks open an eye. “Oh.” Then, “Cool?”

 

Casta watches her, for a moment, before she says: “Adora, your muscles have been emitting a single scream for the past minute, now.”

 

 _“Oh,”_ she pauses, wilts, “Oh.”

 

Casta offers up a half-smile, says, “You must work on simply  _relaxing;_  clearing your mind. It doesn’t require much else.”

 

“I’ve never…” she falters, bites the inside of her cheek, “I don’t really know _how.”_

 

Casta claps her hands. _“Well,_ loosen your muscles.” Adora sags, instinctively, “but sit up straight,” Casta rectifies. Adora sits up. “Work on your breathing. In for four; out for four.”

 

“Oh.” She knows  _this._

 

“Hm?”

 

“Well, I know some of this. Not  _all_  of it, but— we used to use breathing exercises for simulation prep,” Adora shrugs, “Kind of surprising that they’re so similar.” They seem like a million worlds apart – calm and still; battle and motion.

 

“Simulation…” Casta’s brow furrows, dips in on itself in confusion. It’s then that Adora realises her mistake; stiffens. After a lengthy pause, Casta continues, “Well… the Horde have undoubtedly  _borrowed_ some of their exercises from Mystacor. It’s hardly surprising.” And her voice is a little too light; tone evasive.

 

Adora can’t help but feel she’s done something wrong.

 

*

 

In between training and meditation hours, she finds things.

 

Their meanings forgotten, they live in the walls of Mystacor’s castle. Beneath the Lunarium’s domed roof, behind the solar lenses, she trails curious fingers along engravings, etched deep into the stone; filled in with gold. Dots criss-crossed and pattered into abstract shapes.

 

Spin on a sandalled heel, and you might find the names for each of them, sliced into the stone in slivers of silver:

 

_PEGASUS; DRACO; PERSEUS; LEO [EARTH VIEW]._

 

_MANTENNA; MODULOK; CY-CHOP [ETHERIA VIEW]._

 

_ORKO; KOWL [ETERNIA VIEW]._

 

“What are they?” she asks Casta, one day, after the first Lunar Eclipse of their stay, as her fingertips find a golden pinpoint, track it beyond.

 

Casta smiles, sadly. “They  _were_ the constellations; _stars, before—_ before we lost them.” The moonlight catches in her eyes so strangely, just then; they look like they’re shining with—

 

—But, that can’t be right.

 

“Who did these?” The engravings are beautiful, stretched out across the cool marble walls, a swirling vortex of colour.

 

Casta looks up at the wall, eyes vacant. “The sculptor, Sebrian. It was— _payment,_ of sorts. For Ma— _his daughter_ to attend Mystacor’s academy.” Shaking her head, she smiles. “He was an incredible designer, don’t you think?"

 

Adora nods, absently, then asks: “You saw them, right? The stars?” Casta nods; a small, jerking motion, “What were they like?” She’s seen the flashes in First Ones visions, of course, and Razz’s hologram. But never more than that. Never anything _real._

 

Casta smiles, then, wide and brilliant. “They  _twinkled.”_  Her voice is so warm. She says it like it’s everything. Adora doesn’t have the heart to ask her what it means.

 

Later, much later, she finds the word embedded in the dictionary, just past  _twin_ and  _twine,_ but it’s there:  _to move lightly;_ synonyms:  _dance; skip; glide._

 

“Weird,” she mutters to herself, right before the lights wink out.

 

*

_The shadows bleed into all her dreams, now; web out and spiral in, burn and taint and lie and nothing good - all of her childhood cast into dark._

 

_Entrapta’s voice sounds from everywhere. Distant and dead. Catra’s screams and smirks and laughs, falling into each other. The good and the bad of her all slicing at each other in carnage - a mess of thought and sound and goodbye._

 

_Playing with friends amongst scrap metal as giggling children. But, she'll turn and they’re older, honed into assignments and six-digit-number codes._

_Lonnie might aim her gun, safety off, at Adora’s exposed throat; Rogelio might launch himself at her friends; Kyle might stare at her with sad, wavering eyes. Catra might hit a full blast of a TASER into her skin, and - this time - she won’t apologise for how the pain splits through her._

 

_She finally knows what it’s like to wake up, gasping and sobbing._

_Maybe, this was what Catra saw when she was young and afraid of losing people. Maybe, this is what drove her to the edge she cut Adora from with a smile._

 

_Maybe._

_Maybe, the shadows live in Mystacor. Maybe, they live in her. Maybe, it doesn’t matter, because they’re here, and they bite down with sharp teeth._

 

*

 

On the third week, she finally cracks.

 

“I’m scared,” she admits, gaze falling to her feet, “The first day—I saw something. I went too far, I think.” She takes a shaky breath. “I’m scared I’ll get lost in my head.”  _That, if I look at it, I won’t be able to handle what I find there. Grey skin or claw marks or welding masks in burning chambers and my fault; my fault; my fault._

 

Casta smiles, kindly. “You’re allowed to get a little lost, Adora. We’ll be there when you’re found again.”

 

It’s not enough – she can’t believe her. She holds on.

 

 

*

 

Casta never asks that she bring her sword; Adora never offers. For now, it can stay that simple. 

 

*

 

On the fourth week, Adora tells her the truth.

 

Not all of it, not everything. But the first splinter of it.

 

“It’s… memories.” Casta’s head jerks towards her. Adora doesn’t look up, keeps her eyes trained on the training mat. “Not _just_ memories, but... but, they’re, well,  _wrong._ All wrong. There are these— _shadows,_ everywhere, and I say and do things I’d  _never_ said— _never_ done.”

 

Casta nods, turns away. “I see,” her voice is small, “It’s that, then.” Her mouth twists, her face is—hard to make sense of.  _Resigned,_ maybe.  _Pained,_ is another word that springs to mind, but it can’t be right.

 

“It’s what?”

 

She tuts, drums her fingers on the training mat. “For a sorcerer, it's the second stage of teaching. We haven’t quite finished the  _first_ stage yet. You haven’t mastered being _still.”_ Adora represses a groan, but her exasperation clearly plays on her face, because Casta chuckles.  _“Fortunately for you,_ you’re She-Ra. So, perhaps, the process could be sped up,” at the grin spearing across Adora’s face, she rectifies,  _“just_ a little.”

 

Adora nods. “What do I need to do?”

 

Casta sits up, places her hands in her lap; Adora mimics the motion. “Close your eyes,” Casta instructs. Adora closes them, “and tell me what you see.”

 

It’s… dark. Obviously. That can’t be what Casta’s looking for, though. She thinks hard. This shouldn’t be too difficult. She tries it, anyway. “Darkness?” Casta makes a noise which could mean anything, so Adora tries again, looking for the word Casta wants: “Um, black? Or, dark grey. Nothing!  _Nothing.” Smart._ “Is nothing the answer?”

 

Casta laughs, lightly; is quiet for some time. Then, she speaks: “We’ll try something.” And she begins, “Adora, what can you tell me about the Horde?”

 

Adora stiffens into straight-backed stone. “Why?”

 

“I don’t know all that much about them,” Casta says, airily, “perhaps, it’s time I learnt.”

 

“Well, they—” she should tread carefully, with this, “they’re… colonisers. They’ve been around for a thousand years. Or, maybe more. They’re—  _militaristic.”_ She inhales long, continues: “The Rebellion calls them the Evil Horde, and one of their main bases of operation is the Fright Zone. Their main goal is to expand their reach; conquer all of Etheria, for the—for what  _they think_ is the good of the planet.”

 

Casta is still for a long time. Silence strains and darkness spins. Adora shifts where she sits, uncomfortably; wonders if she’s allowed to open her eyes yet.  

 

Apparently not, because - finally, Casta speaks again, “And…  _you,_  Adora. You were a recruit; they raised you.”

 

She tenses, jumps on the defensive, “I know what the Horde do is wrong—”

 

“You’re not on trial, Adora,” her voice is unexpectedly kind, “I would simply like to know what it was like, to grow up there.” Adora is silent. It’s a novel concept. The unspoken assumption has always been that it was a world of monsters,  _only that;_ devoid of shades of grey or blurred boundaries. “When did you start your training?”

 

Adora shrugs, shuffles, begins cautiously, “Everyone begins their training at the same age. Usually, the Carers and Enforcers look after you until you’re seven. And, then, you enter the barracks.”

 

“And these…  _Enforcers,”_ Casta says the word carefully, “they looked after _you?”_

 

Adora shakes her head, “No. Not me. I was— I was a special case, I guess. I was… Shadow Weaver saved me.” The air seems to shift, subtly, but Adora continues, eyes slammed shut. “She was _technically_ our sole guardian.”

 

Casta stills at that. _“Our?”_

 

Adora nods. “Me, and—”  _loose, dark hair; pointed ears; strange, scared eyes,_ “—another girl.”

 

*

 

_“This is the one?” Shadow Weaver’s voice cracks through the cold air, distain dripping from the whip of it, “You’re quite sure?_ _”_

 

_Adora waits in the foreground, dressed in Horde red best, as Octavia brings forward the girl, clutching at her knee. She’s so much smaller than Adora had imagined. That’s the first thing._

 

_Octavia nods, shunts the girl forward, almost reluctantly. She stumbles, looks up at the Enforcer with eyes blown wide, fearful, but trusting. The Enforcer doesn’t look at her, only sets her jaw and nods. Horde soldiers never waver._

 

_“Hordak’s orders.”_

*

 

“We were the wards of Shadow Weaver.”

 

Casta pauses. “And, why were you chosen?” At Adora’s questioning look, she explains, “Well, the Horde is full of thousands of recruits; thousands of children are taken and join the ranks, every year. What was special about you?”

 

“I guess—” She doesn’t know. She’d never really thought about the  _why._ “Shadow Weaver saved me,” she says, for the second time, “When I was just a baby, she took me in. Maybe— Maybe she thought I would be useful, in the future.”

 

Casta nods. “And, the other girl?”

 

“I don’t know,” she shrugs, “I never asked. I— don’t know,” she says it again.

 

“I can't imagine she took too kindly to questions,” Casta murmurs, seemingly more to herself than Adora. There’s an underside to this; a subtext; an insinuation which Adora can’t look at, right now.

 

“Yeah,” she answers anyway, “I guess she didn’t.”

 

Casta hums, seems dissatisfied. Finally, she asks, “Did you have friends, in the Horde?”

 

Adora holds her breath. The flashes come unbidden.

 

*

 

_A shout levelled against roaring winds: “You think you can just come back here?”_

*

 

"Yes,  _I—_ I had them.”

 

Casta hums again, and there’s none of the judgement she fears in the sound. “And what were they like?”

 

“They were…” she falters -  _what were they?_ “They were—”

 

*

 

“— _your friends!” Lonnie yells, with shining eyes and bared teeth. Adora sees her own steel will; stubborn hurt, reflected in her face._

*

 

“— _strong_ , and—”

 

*

 

_A giggle and snort: “You should have seen your face; you were all – argh, betrayal!”_

*

 

“—and they were  _kids,_ and—”

 

*

 

_A promise: “You look out for me. And I look out for you. Nothing really bad can happen as long as we have each other.”_

*

 

“—and we looked out for each other.”

 

There’s a pause, and then she’s laughing, a little. “You know, a lot of people would still room with their squad, after they got their assignments. When you sleep in the same room as people for years, it’s— _comforting,_ I guess. Even though Kyle whistles in his sleep and Lonnie and Rogelio snore and Catra—”

 

She stops giggling. Her chest feels tight, like it might cave in at any moment. The darkness shifts, seems to change; move like liquid tar across her eyes.  _I’ll never see them again; never like that. I wish I could have—_

 

Casta says nothing – the silence patient, but expecting.

 

“Shadows,” Adora says, after a raw pause, “You asked me what I saw. I see shadows.”

 

The session ends soon after.

 

*

 

_In the night-time, they come for her._

 

_They taint; twist the good things – Catra’s hand in hers, without vice, the sound of Lonnie’s laugh, Rogelio’s jokes and Kyle’s tired grumbling. They blacken children’s games into something unrecognisable; something she doesn’t want to know._

 

_She’s fifteen, and sparring with Lonnie, laughing and blissfully unaware. But, then her vision blurs in on itself with tears, and the scene shifts, and it’s green lights and Lonnie is sent flying off the hover lift with a startled screech._

 

_Or, she’s half-asleep, with Catra’s body pressed into her back, fists curling sleepily into the back of her bed shirt. It’s the safest thing._

_Until her claws extend._

_She feels her skin tear; the burn of it, the scream rip from her throat and it’s clifftops and battle smoke and pressure points. Catra’s gripping her jaw, hissing her worst words - because she knows them - knows what will prise open her ribs and plant a bomb between them:_

_“Of course it’s not over. It won’t be over until Bright Moon is destroyed and the Rebellion falls. It won’t be over until darkness covers Etheria forever. And it won’t be over until I see the looks on your friends’ faces when they find out that you failed; that you were_ too weak _to save them."_

 

_These are the ones that wake her screaming. These are the worst, because they are real._

 

*

 

Sometimes, in the quiet moments after meditation, she stays with Casta.

 

It’s little, at first. A passing goodbye of a question delivers an answer that drags for minutes, but it’s a good drag. An interesting sort of lull. 

 

“What was he like?” she asks her, one day, when the hour is finished and she’s feeling particularly curious. There can be no question who she’s talking about - they’re sitting beside him, man made of marble, pillar for a throat and white for the rest of him. Micah.

 

“He was—” she pauses, seems to think it over,  _“reckless_. And, restless, as a child. He was a silly boy, even as boys go. But,” she shuts her eyes,  _“so strong._  Angry, with good reason. When he grew, he was… still those things, really. Angella made him smart, taught him the— _value_ of patience, but he was still Micah, at the end of the day. And he never quite lost his dramatic streak.”

 

As the weeks progress, she finds truth in the flashes of anecdotes, dotted in conversation: 

 

“When he was younger, two hundred years or so, he asked Angella to marry him for the first time, you know. She turned him down, of course – she told him she was too old for him. So, he stole my spell book and found one that would turn him into an old man with a beard to the floor, and asked her again,” she grins, “She laughed, at least."

 

“Wait, she—Queen Angella _turned him down?”_ It surprises her.

 

Casta laughs, slightly, “Yes. A few times, dear, across the centuries.”

 

Adora falters, confused. “Did… did she not...?” _Love him?_  The thought had never occurred to her. It feels like a betrayal, really. When she thinks of _that_ kind of _love,_ now, they’re one of the first of the few examples she can think of.

 

Casta sighs. “She loved him, very much. But, it was—they were  _complicated.”_ It seems to be a recurring theme, for things to be more complicated than they need to be. 

 

*

 

On the first day of the fourth week, Casta tells her what Adora wants to know.

 

Or, one of the things she wants to know. A fractured fraction of it.

 

“You know, Adora,” she says, after Adora has been successfully  _still_ for half an hour, “shadows have names, in Mystacor.”

 

Adora opens her eyes with difficulty; stares at her. “What—like…” she points a tentative finger to the shadow of a table, “Frank?” It’s humour – a tentative attempt. The first, with Casta.

 

She snorts, smiles at her, “That wasn’t  _exactly_ what I had in mind,” she makes to stand, stretches and twists to look at the honed marble figures. “Pain, hunger, anger, guilt. Those are the four. If we do not control them; if we do not keep them in check, they taint everything. Our powers, in particular. For sorcerers, _and princesses.”_

 

Adora swallows, tries to clear the thing caught in her throat, listens in tense silence.

 

“You are a princess, now. And dreams, to princesses, are powerful things. They see the pasts and presents and futures – and, _other things,_ too.” There’s something heavy, laced in her voice, but she’s moving on before Adora can press. “But, shadows – if not kept in check – _corrupt_ them. Your guilt and pain will damage your recollection of the past. Shadows can control how we behave in the present, _and_ what we see in the future.”

 

“I’ve never seen the future,” Adora says, jumping on the only words she knows to counter this. Casta only regards her, levelly.

 

“No. I can't imagine you have. Princesses tend to see the past in dreams before they see the future. But—” she sighs, tries again, “You’re _allowed_ to be in pain, Adora. You’ve lost your _home;_ it’s allowed to hurt. You’re allowed to miss. But, you _must_ keep this in check, you must learn to accept and move on.”

 

 _“My home,”_  she murmurs, and it rings like truth.  _I think I lost that, somewhere._

 

“The Horde was your home,” Casta says, “wasn’t it?"

 

“It…  _was_ —but they’ve done so many terrible things—”

 

“It was still your home. You didn’t know. You couldn’t have. Nobody told you.” She says it like it’s simple. 

 

 _“I—_  I’m sorry,” Adora murmurs it anyway, on impulse, tightens the grip of her fists, almost punishing. 

 

“You shouldn’t be, not for that,” Casta tells her, softly. No one’s ever told her that, before. “But, you left. And your squad didn’t.” It’s only facts, there’s no bite or spite to it. Still, it aches. “And that was _their_ choice, Adora. You are not responsible for their actions. Not—” she sighs, _“not everything is your fault.”_

  

*

_The shadows are not them._

_They are not her past, in the end. They might crawl up her walls; wear the faces of children that have outgrown them; the skins of daydreams, but they’re rotten and shaded, in the end._

_It comes slow, and it never stops hurting, because it’s real. But she accepts._

_She can’t save them. She can’t save anyone from their own choices. She has made the best ones she could; done everything she can. That is all she can do._

_Catra isn’t a child anymore; the decisions she made, the people she hurt, the pain she caused, were all done by someone grown, if just barely. They weren’t the careless actions of a child ignorant to others' pain. She meant to maim. She meant to hurt. She means to control._

_And it isn’t Adora’s fault; isn’t her responsibility. Even if she knows the reasons. This isn’t her burden, and she won’t carry it for the person who ripped her scars and left her for dead, aching and—_ angry.

_Because she is. She is angry. Because it wasn’t right. This wasn’t fair. She should be allowed to say that. That one childish thing. That one adult acknowledgement. It isn’t fair._

 

*

 

It happens one lunchtime. Adora really should have expected it, but, “Hey, Bow?” They’re seated out on one of the outdoor tables, with the cold air and sun on their skin after training. “Uh, Glimmer’s coming over.”

 

“Oh, great,” he’s scrolling on his tracker pad, distractedly, “I can tell her about—”

 

“No, _no,_ Bow, she’s—she looks _really_ mad.” His head jerks up at that, and he opens his mouth to say something, but then Glimmer’s on him, teleporting into the seat opposite him, face scrunched and fuming.

 

“You…” she falters, says again, _“You!”_ as she points an accusatory finger at Bow. 

 

Bow stares at her. “Me,” he repeats, like he doesn’t know the meaning of the word. “Me… _what?”_

 

Glimmer sputters, “Oh,  _me what,_ are you  _serious_ right now?” Bow continues to look nonplussed, reaching to take a sip of ale. Finally, she sighs.  _“Lysander?”_ Bow chokes.

 

He goes to wipe at his mouth with a napkin. “How did you…” he groans; nods, “Figures. _Sorcerers.”_

 

“You could have gone for any of them, Bow, but _Lysander?_ Lysander. _Quentin, Penelope,_ even freaking _Luke!_ But…  _oh no._  Lysander. _My second cousin twice removed_ Lysander.  _IQ of Approximately Five_  Lysander.”

 

“He’s— _OK,_ you know what? I think he’s a bit more than meets the eye—”

 

“He asked me what _type of weapon you used,”_ Glimmer interjects, “what _weapon, Bow._ In fact, I’m pretty sure his exact words were:” her voice dips into a slurring tenor, “ _uh, does Bow use a sword or, like, a javelin or something? I can’t remember."_

 

“He’s nice!” Bow protests, “Or, _sort of._ He’s mean, sometimes, but he’s got nice hair.”

 

Glimmer snorts. “If his hair’s bigger than his brain, then there’s a problem. And, we agreed that relatives were off-limits!” Bow shrugs, helplessly.

 

“I forgot he was one! It’s kind of difficult to keep up when _half the kingdom of Mystacor_ is distantly related to you, Glimmer."

 

“What’s happening, now?” Adora asks, as she bites into a bread roll. 

 

Glimmer turns on her, scowling as she drawls out an explanation: “Bow’s got a new  _boo. Oh,_ Penelope’s going to be _furious—”_

 

“He’s not my  _boo,”_ he interjects, laughingly, “It was _one_ kiss. He’s getting back together with Quentin. He _told_ me."

 

“He was _crying in the bathroom_ because you didn’t show up at court today. _I_ had to deal with that.” Bow gapes. Glimmer snorts, pokes his nose. _“Boo.”_

 

 _“Boo…”_ This was in one of Adora’s books, “You have a ghost, Bow?”

 

Bow sighs, shakes his head. “I don’t have a boo _or_ a ghost,” he says. “I… oh, _no._ I should talk to him.”

 

Glimmer nods, takes a seat next to Adora. “If he’s not gotten back together with Quentin in the down time, then probably.” He makes to leave, hurrying over to the sorcerers’ tables. Adora spots the boy from the summoning circle, glaring at him as he approaches. “Bow is a _heartthrob_ in Mystacor. It’s—” she wrinkles up her nose, “like, half of these people are related to me, which makes things... weird.” 

 

Adora hums, thoughtfully, takes a bite of apple, “What about you? Do you have a… _boo?”_ She wrinkles her nose – _yeah,_ she’s not going to say that again.

 

Glimmer pulls a face. “In  _Mystacor?_ I would literally rather get _cursed_ than go out with a sorcerer. Have you  _seen_ them?” she snorts, “I’ve gone to  _five_ weddings where the bride or groom have been left at the altar, here. Two of them were for the  _same couple.”_

 

“Why would you leave someone at the altar?” She still doesn’t quite  _get_ weddings, but she’s pretty sure that’s the opposite of how they work.

 

“Cold feet, I guess.” Glimmer shrugs. Adora is about to ask more, when Bow returns, looking stunned.

 

Glimmer takes one look at his face, and is throwing back her head to laugh. “He’s back with Quentin, isn’t he?” Bow nods, face breaking out into a tiny grin as he takes his seat; makes a hushing motion. “Figures.” She offers him a thumbs-up, and he snorts.

 

“He’s _expecting_ me to be heartbroken. Just—pass me a roll,” he mutters, trying to look suitably stricken even as he takes a massive bite out of it.

 

*

 

A first confession:

 

It’s the fifth week, and they sit by the hearth, in Casta’s living room, after meditation. Adora had intended to go to her rooms afterwards, that evening, but twenty or so questions from her had led to them sitting in Casta’s sitting room in companionable silence.

 

Adora has been reading for some time, now, but the words seem to bounce from her eyes right back on to the page. Finally, she gives up, turns away from her latest book’s weathered pages.  

 

Staring at the burning grate, at length, she speaks: “Sometimes, I see her.”

 

Casta looks up from her knitting. “See who, Adora?”

 

Adora shuts her eyes, breathes out like she’s been taught, “Entrapta,” she says on the exhale. “The princess of Dryl—”

 

“I know who Entrapta is,” Casta interrupts, slow and strained.

 

Suddenly, the carpet is the most interesting thing in the world. She stares at it until her eyes burn. “Yeah, well—then, you know she died. Rescue mission gone wrong.” She inhales a broken breath, continues, “She—she got caught—in one of the Horde’s exploding chambers. I wasn’t there—but… the others saw it.”

 

“Yes. Glimmer told me,” she sighs, “I was very sorry to hear about that.” She sounds like she means it. After a slight pause, she tells her, “I taught her, you know?”

 

“You did?” Adora looks up at her, surprised.

 

Casta nods, hums. “She was the first princess of this generation to come to me, seeking guidance. Or…” she chuckles, “It was more her  _mother_ was the first queen of this generation to _drag her daughter by the hair_ to see me.”

 

“You knew her, then?”

 

“Yes,” Casta nods, “she stayed with me for some months. I think—” she sighs, “Her mother found her  _difficult_ to deal with. They never truly clicked. Entrapta…  _struggled_ with people. She never understood; felt alone. So, she made robots; it seemed friendship was easier for her to understand if you gave her an algorithm for it. And she stayed with herself.”

 

She laughs, then, and it’s such a sad sound. “She was a lovely girl, though, and  _lonely._ I don’t think she ever  _liked_ being on her own, even if she said she did.”

 

Adora shuts her eyes. “I didn’t know her that well, honestly. But, _she was my friend,_ and—even though she didn’t really  _get_ what we were fighting for, she sacrificed— _everything_ for Glimmer. For the Princess Alliance.”

 

“If Entrapta did that, then she must have considered you all her friends.” Casta finally turns away from the fire, and her eyes shine, “I’m glad, that she found you all before it happened. I don’t think— she wouldn’t regret it, Adora. Entrapta wouldn’t hold this against you.”

 

“It’s  _my fault,_ though,” she says; chokes on the words, “If I’d just—”

 

“No, Adora,” Casta holds up a hand; cuts her off. “You can’t say that. The Horde killed Entrapta. You had no hand in it.”

 

Adora is silent. She’s wrong. _It was my plan,_ she wants to say, _it was my idea. I could have thought of another one; stronger. What ever happened to “no princess will be left behind”?_

 

Casta sighs. “Not everything is your responsibility, Adora. Not everything is your burden to carry.”

 

“I’m _She-Ra,”_ and there’s heat rising in her words, because  _why can’t she understand?_ “everyone in the Rebellion sort of  _is_ my responsibility. That’s kind of what this means.”

 

Casta shakes her head. “No one, _not even She-Ra,_ can carry the weight of the world with just their bare hands. If you win this, if you end this war, it will be with the help of others – of the princesses and sorcerers and _anyone else_ who is willing to lend a hand.”

 

 _“The princesses,”_  Adora repeats, voice spiked with jagged grief. She can feel herself trembling, just a little, “I let one of the princesses  _die.”_

 

“You took a risk.  _Each of you_ took a risk. Entrapta was a scientist. She knew all about risks. She was made of them, and she took one to save her friends. She— she  _must_ have thought it was worth it.” Casta’s knitting lies in a crumpled heap, abandoned.

 

“I didn’t expect—”  _it to be an innocent, that it would happen under my command, that I would let it._ She falls silent.

 

Casta turns away from the fire, looks at her with sad, aged eyes. “Adora, I have been alive for over a thousand years. I have been governing Mystacor  _for a thousand years_. I have been at war with the Horde since I was a child. I have so many people I miss, I’ve forgotten some of their names.” Adora can feel her nails sinking into the palm of her hand, grounding. Casta continues, kind but firm, “You _will_ lose people, in this. I won’t lie to you. But— you will help no one - not them, not their families, not their memory – with this guilt. It does her no good. This _only hurts_ you."

 

She holds her breath, waits for the worst – the barbed sting behind her eyes – to pass. Nods.

 

*

 

_That night, she sees Entrapta for what feels like the last time._

_They’re seated in a Fright Zone vent, streams of sliced light colouring their skin green. The girl from her visions; an echo in an echo, pigtails and crazy smiles and peeling through the Fright Zone with open eyes, sits now with her welding mask pulled down and clutching her knees._

 

 _She’s not dead._   _Still whole, but shadows spill from the seams of her. This is a different girl to the Entrapta she knew. She lives in the black of Adora’s headspace; didn’t die in the emerald fire, searching for a little more time._

_It isn’t her, she knows. She plays with shadows. Still, she speaks:_

_“I’m sorry. There was nothing I could do. There’s nothing I can do.” It’s all she can say. It’s all she feels. “You were incredible. I wish I’d known you better. It isn’t fair."_

_It’s impossible to see her face – the welding mask is pulled down, hides everything. But Entrapta holds out a gloved hand, and on Adora’s touch, she disperses into darkness._

_Maybe this is that elusive thing called closure._

 

*

 

Adora learns that there is a kind of peace in quiet moments.

 

She reads, a lot, now. Glimmer has given her all her favourites, and they’re not all romance – a lot of them are action, or comedies full of jokes Adora doesn’t _quite get,_ but tries to.

 

She spends more time with Casta, reads while she knits, and it’s… nice. Casta has made about a million sweaters in the time she’s been at Mystacor; has over a thousand years’ worth of stories under her belt.

 

She wants to know things. She wants to know about the past – the people who existed before they turned to marble and shadows. 

 

“What was Shadow— _Beatrix,_ like, anyway?” she asks, one day, when they’re seated by the fire in Casta’s living room. Casta smiles, briefly, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

 

“She was… she was—“ her face is cast in shadows, _“the beginning of the worst things.”_ It catches Adora off guard. Casta inhales sharp. "They should have never given her the power she got, within these walls, but—my father always doted on her.” She sets down her knitting, "She still sought control, even as a child, and she was still _angry,_ always, _always_ taking it out on the little things, the things that wouldn’t— _fight back_ or _tell tales.”_ Her voice is granite hard - _bitter._

 

It’s the first time it occurs to her; the creeping realisation. _Oh._

 

“I didn’t know that you—" she stops, uncertain. "The first time you talked about her— it was like you thought she was an old wives’ tale or something.”

 

“Yes,” Casta nods, “a _joke,_ you must forgive me. You develop a kind of— _humour,_ about it, after a thousand years. I didn’t know anything about you, then.” She sighs, _“I didn’t know.”_

 

*

 

_(“It’d be funny if she weren't such a terrible person.”)_

 

*

 

The night before it all changes, the three of them – Glimmer; Bow; Adora – sit on a sandy hill and watch the moons rise in silence. Glimmer has a book propped open by her elbows, Bow is humming quietly, and she thinks she could get used to this - this softness before the storm.

 

But, still, “Something’s coming,” she says. Because it is; because she has to say it before it arrives; before it sweeps in. 

 

Bow looks up from where he is fletching his arrows. Glimmer turns to look at her. “Something always is,” she says, and she sounds tired. In their lifetimes, none of them have ever known a quiet moment. This, these past four months, have set all of Etheria on edge.

 

“But, we can take it. Whatever they throw at us. We  _can_ take it,” Bow says, and he sounds more confident than Adora feels. He turns to her, smiles. “Right?”

 

She doesn’t answer, at first. She doesn’t know the answer. “Yeah. Right. We can take it.” She stands, “I just remembered something. I think—I have to talk to Casta.” She has to tell her, _tell her all of it._ She has to know.  _Something is coming._

 

They nod, seem to understand. Not for the first time, she’s reminded that she’s not the only one who dreams. 

 

*

 

Casta is knitting when Adora knocks on the living room door.

 

“Come in,” she hears her call, so she enters, slowly. One look at her, and Casta skips a stitch. “Adora, dear. What’s the matter?” she asks, as she stands, takes several strides to her side. Adora opens her mouth to speak, shuts it. Without another word, she’s pulled into an armchair by the fire. The hearth is half-lit, sputtering quietly, embers dying with a crackle. Adora screws her eyes shut.

 

And finally, _finally,_ she tells her.

 

It pours out in a tumble; a rush and tangle - the dreams; memories; _the vision through Catra’s eyes;_ the shadows; the pain of leaving home; the pain of not having one anymore; the people she left behind. Casta listens, eyes wide and silent, as Adora looks at the floor and the ceiling and the wall behind Casta’s armchair but never at _her,_ never at Casta, because she’s always been bad at looking at things in the face. 

 

When it’s over, when it’s said, Casta is quiet for a long time. Finally, she speaks: “I knew."

 

It hits homeward hard. “You— _you—_ what?”

 

“I knew,” she repeats, holding Adora’s eye, “about your dreams; about... these visions. I guessed. I hoped it wasn’t, but— _of course,_ it was.” Adora clutches at her hands; wrings them; places them in her lap; stares at the fire. Stalls.

 

“I thought—I thought  _I knew why,”_  she says, with too much shake, “I thought it was because—because I  _missed_ them. I  _do_ miss them,  _so_ badly. But it’s more than that, isn’t it?”

 

“It is,” Casta nods, as the moons' light holds her eyes in a grip of silver, “I’m sorry, Adora. I think, maybe I should be.”

 

Adora feels her eyes and nose burn. She can’t cry.  _She hasn’t cried since—_

 

“Could you—could you tell me what it is?” she asks, and she hates the way her voice sounds – automatic; the weakness in it repulses her before she can stop it. She’s meant to be She-Ra. The Rebellion’s saviour. And, before that, she was meant to be Shadow Weaver’s Force Captain.

 

_(And, before even that, she was meant to be Catra’s—)_

 

“Yes, but—“ she sighs; a leaden sound, _“not_ tonight. Tomorrow, Adora. Tomorrow, I will give you all I know.”

 

Adora nods, weakly, swipes at her eyes with the back of her tunic sleeve. “Tomorrow,” she echoes. It’s a hollowed-out word - every today was yesterday’s _tomorrow._ She feels so small; young— helpless, lost in dark.

 

She leaves quietly.

 

*

 

_That night, Adora dreams._

_That in itself would not be noteworthy anymore, wouldn’t be worth the mention. But it is different to all the nights before._

_She doesn’t dream of times she’s seen, gone; slipping through her fingers. Instead, she dreams of another time, a time she hasn’t seen._

_She dreams of a girl, lost and sick in the woods, tossing aside a sword with a strangled sob, embedding the blade in the earth._

_She is running; staggering; trying to hold on. She will be alone for a millennium._

_“My name—” she chokes with ragged lungs, “my name—my name is Mara. My name— Mara. My—” she falters, topples into the dirt, curls in on herself, shuddering out a desperate bid for air, “—Mara.”_

_She’s so tired. You cannot blame her. You must never blame her._

_She lets go in the worst way._

_*_

_(“Ah. It’s the same old story, dearie. Wicked people destroy what they cannot control.”)_

_*_

_Now, somewhere else – closer. Closer than the washed-up memory of that forgotten girl. Another place she hasn’t seen; another memory she shouldn’t have, but it’s_ them _– it’s Adora and Catra. How it’s always been, from the beginning._

 

 _And it feels real; like something she can touch, something she_ will _touch._

_They’re tumbling through the dunes on a beat-up Horde skiff, green cut against gold, skidding through sand, visible skin caked and crusted with golden particles._

_It’s a boiling trip, a journey through a haze of heat, but still, they stand close._

_She feels a lot of things – the clamminess of sweat and the swell of heat pressing down on her back; the feeling of her hair, spiked around her jaw, veiling her face in damp, curling tendrils._

_In front of her, Catra’s hood is blown back, her mane a tangled mess, stuck with sand. She’s standing, hands twisting at the steering rod._

_“You should let me drive,” Adora tells her, over the roar of bone-dry winds, “I know where we’re going.”_

_Catra shakes her head, dislodging specks of sand in her hair, not looking back at her, “No way. I don’t trust you,” but there’s a trace of play in her voice._

_“Do you not?” She rolls her eyes. “Unbelievable. Turn right up the incline here.” They swerve up along a steep, sandy slope, but the skiff draws to a slow half-way up. “Huh?” Adora shoots her a glance. Catra still isn’t looking at her. “Are we out of fuel?”_

_Catra does turn, then, and her eyes are rimmed with dark. “No, but— we shouldn’t go this way.” She doesn’t elaborate, only shakes her head again, “Isn’t there another?”_

_“I don’t think so,” For whatever reason, she doesn’t ask why. Instead, she half-smiles. “C’mon. Gear up. The others are waiting.”_

_Catra’s face is so different, now; cheeks hollowed and eyes drawn into themselves. “Something’s coming,” she murmurs, tone all hard edges, looking out at the dunes, shielding her eyes from the harsh glare of the sun._

_She’s scared, Adora knows._

_“Yeah,” she doesn’t argue, “but, we already knew that.”_

_There’s silence for a moment._

_And then, slowly, so slowly, Catra’s pinkie twitches. It reaches out, bridges the distance between them; brushes at Adora’s fingers. And, Adora’s taking it, pulling her hand into hers. Fingers fold - twine together with unbearable softness. Hot air and sandy palms press; clutch._

_Catra still isn’t looking at her. She doesn’t smile, either, but it’s a close thing. Her mouth twitches, just slight. Finally, she closes her eyes._

_“Yeah.” Catra nods. “We knew.”_

_Last words are, all too often, lies._


End file.
